RateGain IPO: Travel Tech’s Price Band Fixed At INR 405 – 425 Per Share

Travel tech startup RateGain has fixed the price band for its initial public offering (IPO) at  INR 405 – INR 425 per share.

The offer, which includes a fresh issue of shares worth INR 375 Cr is scheduled to open on December 7 and will close on December 9. Rategain has lowered its fresh issue size from the initial proposed INR 400 Cr. The offer also includes an offer for sale (OFS) of up to 2,26,05,530 shares and shares worth INR 5 Cr will be reserved for the eligible employees.

In a statement, the Noida-based startup said that bids can be made for a minimum of 35 equity shares and in multiples of 35 shares thereafter.

RateGain’s Offer For Sale

• In the OFS, private equity firm TA Associates will offload up to 1,71,14,490 shares for sale through its associate Wagner. 
• RateGain founder and CMD Bhanu Chopra will be offloading 40,43,950 shares. 
• The founder’s family members Megha Chopra and Usha Chopra, have offered to sell up to 12,94,760 and 1,52,330 equity shares respectively.

Promoters hold a majority stake (68.35%) in the startup. Bhanu Chopra holds 50.34%, while his family members Meghna Chopra and Usha Chopra have ownership of 16.12% and 1.90%, respectively.

Wagner, on the other hand, holds 16.13% stake in the company.

Utilisation Of the Net Proceeds

As per the RHP, RateGain will use INR 85.26 Cr to repay a loan taken by RateGain UK from Silicon Valley Bank. Further, it will use INR 25.2 Cr of the proceeds in deferred consideration for the DHISCO acquisition from 2018.

The company has proposed to allocate INR 40.77 Cr to purchase capital equipment for its data centre.

It will also look to invest INR 80 Cr towards strategic investments, acquisitions and inorganic growth and INR 50 Cr for technology innovation, artificial intelligence and other organic growth initiatives.

RateGain chairman and managing director Bhanu Chopra said that post the listing, the company will continue to invest in new products and expand investments to cross-sell and up-sell our suite of products across our large customer base of 1,400 global customers.

He also said that the company will “drive more acquisitions and strategic investments to power its martech (marketing technology) offerings to be able to give more control to the customers to identify more revenue opportunities from travelers while reducing cost of acquisition”.

Founded in 2004 by Chopra, RateGain offers a SaaS product targeted at travel and hospitality companies to help them streamline operations and sales. It enables these businesses to determine the right pricing for their products based on the demand, the current market rates and more to help hotels and booking agents maximise revenue.

On the geography-wise revenue streams for the company, Chopra said that most of RateGain’s business is driven by the international market — with close to 60% coming from the United States and 15-20% coming from Europe and the remaining from Asia.

“Domestically we work with almost all leading brands as of today however, the volume of the business outside is much larger and therefore India today contributes to under 2% of our revenue,” he added.