Online travel aggregator ixigo on Thursday said it has entered into a definitive share purchase agreement to acquire 100% shareholding of Confirmtkt, a Bengaluru-based, online train discovery and booking platform, for an undisclosed amount across a mix of cash and ixigo stock.
The founders of ixigo would join the Confirmtkt board and existing investors of Confirmtkt, including Venture Catalysts, would be exiting the company fully as a part of the deal.
Both the companies would continue to run independently, post the acquisition, the company said in a statement.
ixigo said that train travel in India was an $8 billion market with more than 25 million passengers taking a train trip everyday, pre-COVID. “Both ixigo and Confirmtkt are official IRCTC B2C premium ticketing partners for online train reservations in India. This deal will help the group to consolidate its presence in tier 2/3/4 markets with its combined user base of nearly 200 million Indians,” it added.
Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, co-Founders, ixigo, said the combined entity would have a scale of 35 million monthly active users, and their endeavour in the coming year would be to drive faster growth and deeper penetration in the ‘next billion user’ segment.
Confirmtkt, which was established in 2015, recorded a revenue of ₹21.4 crore and an operating profit of ₹1.54 crore in FY20.
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Yuthika Bhargava
The Hindu
