Paytm’s Yatra To Online Travel Business?

Mcommerce platform, Paytm, is planning to pick up stake in Gurgaon-based travel portal, Yatra.com, reported TOI. According to the report, Paytm has held a couple of rounds of talks with Yatra and details are being worked out.

“Paytm’s investment might come via primary infusion. However, some secondary sale may also happen,” a source directly aware of the move told TOI. One of the investors in Yatra confirmed that talks have started for a potential investment from the Noida-based Paytm. Our queries to Paytm and Yatra remained unanswered.

“For Paytm, the major attraction is to enhance its network in travel business as older players have been cornering the market share in this space along with funding. Yatra has been looking for fresh funds which could now come via Paytm,” another source aware of the development told TOI.

In January 2016, Yatra acqui-hired Mumbai-based Travel-logs, which specialises in organising customised city walks and private tours. Currently Yatra uses Paytm’s wallet services for various discounts and cashbacks.

Paytm has been upping its game extensively with new partnerships and announcements every week. Last week, it partnered with Gurgaon-based PVR Cinemas to bring PVR’s movie tickets to Paytm’s ecommerce platform.

In January, Paytm and Alibaba’s cloud computing arm AliCloud, entered into a commercial partnership that would allow Paytm to expand its network to global markets. In return, Paytm will give Alipay (Alibaba’s financial arm) access to India’s payments services industry. As per the deal, Paytm will spend about $18 Mn to utilise Alipay’s technology via AliCloud (also known as Aliyun). Later reports emerged that Paytm, has taken a loan of $44.7 Mn from ICICI bank in two tranches.

This comes at a time when Yatra’s arch rival MakeMyTrip received $180 Mn funding from China’s Ctrip.com International, Ltd., a leading travel service provider. Another competitor, Online travel venture Ibibo Group said that it will raise $250 Mn from global internet & media company Naspers, and China’s leading internet firm Tencent.

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