IPO Bound ixigo Appoints Six New Members To Its Board Of Directors 

Online travel aggregator ixigo has announced the appointment of six new independent members to its board of directors in the run-up to its initial public offering (IPO) which is expected to be filed by the end of the current financial year.

The new independent members of the board include:

1. Arun Seth, ex Chairman & Trustee NASSCOM Foundation
2. Mahendra Pratap Mall, ex Chairman & Managing Director IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited);
3. Shubha Rao Mayya, ex VP ICICI Limited & ICICI Prudential Life; 
4. Frederic Lalonde, Founder & CEO Hopper Inc; 
5. Rahul Pandit, MD & CEO Hamstede Living, ex Lemon Tree Hotels, Ginger Hotels 
6. Rajesh Sawhney, Cofounder of Innerchef and founder of GSF Accelerator

Gurugram-based ixigo, which is looking to go public in the current financial year, is targeting a valuation of around $750 Mn-$800 Mn. The IPO is scheduled for the fourth quarter of the current calendar year and the company is expected to file its draft red herring prospectus next month. Inc42 had earlier reported that ixigo is targeting an IPO size of around INR 1,500 Cr – INR 1,800 Cr.

The travel firm also appointed investment banks and advisors including Kotak Mahindra Capital, ICICI Securities, Axis Capital and Nomura back in May 2021. The listing will be a combination of primary and secondary issue of shares, which will provide a partial exit to ixigo’s current investors and also facilitate growth capital, a person aware of the company’s IPO plans told Inc42 in May 2021.

ixigo also closed a pre-IPO funding round worth $53 Mn on July 27 led by Singapore-based sovereign fund GIC along with participation from other investors including InfoEdge, WhiteOak, Bay Capital, Orios Venture Partners, Trifecta Capital and Malabar Investments.

To date, the company has raised equity financing from several prominent venture capitalists including Sequoia Capital, Elevation Capital, and Fosun RZ Capital. In addition, online travel firm, and consumer electronics company Micromax is also an investor in Ixigo. Including the current round, Ixigo has raised close to $88 Mn in funding.

The travel aggregator had also recruited former Devyani Foods Director Ravi Shanker Gupta as its new Chief Financial Officer. Gupta brings with him considerable experience in the domain of finance, regulatory compliance and investor relations.

Launched in 2007 by Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, ixigo aggregates and compares real-time travel information, prices, and the availability of flights, trains, buses, cabs, hotels, packages, and destinations. The company has divided its apps based on user-interest— ixigo Train app and ixigo Flight app.

The company claims to connect over 230 Mn travellers with content and deals from over 25K online as well as offline partners. ixigo claims to have over 37 Mn monthly unique users across all its apps and website. It currently processes an annualised gross booking value (GMV) run rate of over INR 5,000 crores.

The online travel firm has also made two acquisitions to date which includes the recent acquisition of train discovery and booking startup Confirmtkt. Ixigo and Confirmtkt entered into a definitive share purchase agreement in February 2021, which saw Ixigo acquire a 100% stake in the Bengaluru-based train booking platform. 

ixigo would become the fourth Indian online travel company to go public after MakeMyTrip(MMT), Yatra, and  EaseMyTrip. MakeMyTrip and Yatra are currently listed on NASDAQ, while EaseMyTrip recently went live on the BSE and NSE mainboard in March 2021 with an issue size of INR 510 Cr.

The Indian online travel market is currently dominated by MMT and Goibibo. According to industry estimates, MMT currently holds 65-70% of India’s online travel market, while the rest, including Yatra, EaseMyTrip, ClearTrip, ixigo and the new entrant Paytm together make up the remaining 30-35% of the industry share.