Ixigo acquires Confirmtkt, opens exit door for Venture Catalysts, others

Ixigo, an artificial intelligence-based travel platform, has entered into an agreement to fully acquire train discovery and booking entity Confirmtkt, it said on Thursday.

The buy will take place through a mix of cash and ixigo stock. However, the two companies did not disclose the financial details of the acquisition. Both companies will continue to run independently following this transaction.

As part of this move, ixigo founders Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar will join Confirmtkt’s board of directors, while investors in Confirmtkt including Venture Catalysts will exit.

The combined entity will have a scale of 35 million monthly active users, and our endeavour in the coming year will be to drive faster growth and deeper penetration in the next-billion user segment, Bajpai and Kumar said.

Confirmtkt was set up in 2015 by Dinesh Kumar Kotha and Sripad Vaidya. The company -- along with ixigo -- is an official IRCTC partner. 

Per ixigo’s statement, Confirmtkt recorded revenues of Rs 21.4 crore and operating profit of Rs 1.54 crore for the 2019-20 financial year.

Ixigo was set up in 2007. The Gurugram-based company says its platform applies AI for personalised recommendations and deal discovery, airfare predictions, train delay information, and customer service. 

Investors in the firm include Sequoia Capital and Elevation Capital. According to VCCEdge, the company reported consolidated net sales of Rs 113.68 crore and losses of Rs 40.4 crore for the 2018-19 financial year.

In July last year, low-cost airline SpiceJet Ltd acqui-hired airline technology company Travenues from ixigo. 

Prior to that, in March, ixigo invested in gogoBus as part of the New Delhi-based premium smart bus platform's first round of funding.