Ixigo Raises $53Mn In Pre-IPO Funding Led By GIC & Others

Online travel aggregator ixigo on July 28 closed a pre-IPO funding round worth $53 Mn 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.

The latest round includes a mix of fresh issue of shares and secondary share sale by some of the existing investors, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

Gurugram-based ixigo, which is looking to go public in the current financial year, is targeting a valuation of around $750-800Mn, according to a report by Economic Times. 

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.

“Firms including Kotak Mahindra Capital, ICICI Securities, Axis Capital and Nomura have been finalised as investment bankers for the IPO and the kickoff meeting happened a few weeks back (in May). 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.

To date, Ixigo 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.

In the run-up to its IPO, the travel company has 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.

Over the last two decades, Gupta has held various senior leadership roles — most recently serving as Executive Director at Devyani Food Street Private Limited where he led the company’s financial operations. Prior to this, he worked with Jubilant FoodWorks Limited for  14 years,  where he last held the position of President & CFO of the company.  He was also a part of Jubilant’s core group when the company went for an IPO in 2010.

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 is 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.

ixigo is one of the few survivors of the tough online travel market which 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.

Corrigendum (15:56 PM, June 28): An earlier version of the story incorrectly mentioned ixigo’s total fundraise as $101 Mn; the correct amount is $88Mn and the story has been corrected to reflect the same.