Travel Company Yatra Plans To Raise $100 Mn In The Next Three Years

Online travel company Yatra has expressed its intention to raise $100 Mn capital in the next three years, as disclosed in the recent filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

As per the filings accessed by Inc42, the company said, “Under this shelf registration process, we may offer ordinary shares, preference shares, various series of debt securities or even warrants to purchase ordinary shares, preference shares and debt securities, either individually or in units, in one or more offerings, up to a total dollar amount of $100 Mn.”

This comes after Yatra filed an offer for sale of its shares with the US SEC, in January 2017, to raise more than $60 Mn.

Yatra: The Journey

Gurugram-headquartered Yatra was founded in August 2006 by Sabina Chopra, Manish Amin and Dhruv Shringi. It provides a full range of travel-related services such as domestic and international air ticketing, hotel booking, homestays, holiday packages, bus ticketing, rail ticketing, activities, attractions and ancillary services.

Yatra claims to have tie-ups with 70K hotels in India and nearly 800K hotels across the globe. It is backed by IDG Ventures, Vertex Venture Management, Norwest Venture Partners and other investors. The company last raised $15.4 Mn as venture debt from InnoVen Capital in September 2017.

Yatra also recently announced its unaudited financial results for the three months ending on December 31, 2017. As per its SEC filings, the company registered a 40.8% year-on-year (YoY) growth in revenue to $52.7 Mn (INR 336.04 Cr) for the last quarter of 2017.

Overall, in the last quarter of 2017, the online travel aggregator raked in profits upwards of $3.6 Mn (INR 23.2 Cr), with adjusted EBITDA loss expanding from $2.9 Mn (INR 18.7 Cr) in the year-ago period to $6 Mn (INR 38.8 Cr).

According to the earnings report, its revenue-less service cost from air ticketing jumped by 46% YoY to $21.4 Mn (INR 137 Cr), while that from the hotels and packages surged by 46.8% to $6.8 Mn (INR 43.7 Cr) during the three months ending in December 2017.

Despite rising losses, Yatra has made a string of acquisitions geared towards growth and expansion. These include Travelguru, Travel-Logs, WhatsApp-based concierge app Dudegenie and Bengaluru-based auto rickshaw aggregator MGaadi. In July 2016, Yatra signed a reverse merger agreement with NASDAQ-listed firm Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corp (TRTL).

Following the move, Yatra started trading on NASDAQ, a global electronic marketplace for buying and selling securities. In October 2016, it also offered Reliance Industries a small equity stake in the company.

In July 2017, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL) reportedly exited from its investment in the online travel portal. Around the same time, it acquired corporate travel service provider Air Travel Bureau (ATB) for an undisclosed amount.

Indian Online Travel Market

In the segment, Yatra majorly competes with the likes of MakeMyTrip, ixigo, TravelTriangle, YuMiGo, HolidayIQ, ClearTrip, Expedia, Ebix-acquired Via.com, Hotels.com and Booking.com.

Recently, MakeMyTrip posted its results for the year ending December 2017 and recorded an overall revenue of $172.5 Mn, up by 36% YoY from $123.2 Mn clocked in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year. Due to increased expenses following the merger with Ibibo Group, the Gurugram-headquartered online travel aggregator witnessed a jump in losses to $45.3 Mn in Q3 of FY18.

The country’s travel market (both offline and online) is expected to become a $48 Bn industry by 2020, according to a Google India-BCG report. As per an IBEF report, the online travel space will likely account for 40% to 50% of total transactions with 2020.

Update: “This is a universal shelf or an enabling filing which allows us to raise funds up to $100 mn, if required, over a period of next 3 years. The security could be equity, debt, preferred shares etc. However, currently, we are well funded and this filing will enable us to raise more funds at the right time to increase our capital base further, ” said Alok Vaish, CFO, Yatra.com