Travel Platform ixigo Bets On Intercity Bus Business With Investment In gogoBus

Gurugram-headquartered travel app ixigo has announced its investment in Delhi-based smart bus startup gogoBus. The company said that it has invested an undisclosed amount in gogoBus’ first round of funding with angels such as Rajesh Sawhney (cofounder and CEO, Innerchef) and Abhishek Sharma (COO, Dineout).

With this funding, gogoBus has launched operations on multiple routes in northern India and will be expanding its product and technology team. Further, ixigo has picked up a minority stake with its investment and is eyeing growth in intercity bus business.

Rajnish Kumar, cofounder and CTO, ixigo, said, “The gogoBus team’s prior operating experience with buses, domain knowledge of travel and transportation, coupled with ixigo’s demand-side scale will help disrupt the bus travel market in a big way.”

Founded in January 2020 by Amit Gupta and Avinash Singh Bagri, gogoBus is a full-stack mobility startup. It offers an asset-light model with interconnected in-house tech platform for booking, tracking, in-bus engagement and standardized brand-new buses and pickup points.

Amit Gupta, cofounder, gogoBus, said that the company has covered over 500K km with a 4.8 rating on Google Play Store. “Our aim is to set new standards when it comes to comfort and safety in bus travel. We offer a wide range of features including customized reclinable luxury seats, GPS enabled buses, predefined pit stops and trained, verified and uniformed drivers to give an exemplary experience to all bus travellers,” he added.

Launched in 2006 by Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, ixigo is an AI-based travel app. The company aggregates and compares real-time travel information, prices, and the availability of flights, trains, etc. The company has divided its apps based on user-interest— ixigo Train app and ixigo Flight app.

The company claims to have a cumulative user base of 170 Mn and 30 Mn monthly active users and claims to enable 1.5 Mn passenger tickets booked per month across flights, hotels, buses and trains. Till date, the company has raised over $36 Mn from its investors including Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners, and Micromax.

As a result of its focus on technical capabilities, ixigo has doubled its gross transaction value (GTV) and grown its revenue 1.7 times in FY19 at INR 113.5 Cr net revenue. ixigo cofounder and CEO Aloke Bajpai told Inc42 that it is now recording an annual GTV run-rate of INR 3000 Cr. He added that the company has seen a 50% Y-o-Y growth rate.

India has over 20 Mn people travelling between cities on a daily basis with a majority of 55% using intercity buses, 40% via railways and just 5% split between airlines, taxis and personal vehicles. Inter-city bus travel constitutes a $20 Bn annual opportunity. Despite a large number of consumers, the entire inter-city bus travel experience has very few players trying to solve for the market with names such as redBus, Shuttl and Zingbus leading the way.