ixigo acquires train booking app Confirmtkt
Hyderabad: AI-based travel app ixigo on Thursday said it has entered into a definitive share purchase agreement to acquire 100 percent shareholding of Confirmtkt, a Bengaluru based online train discovery, and booking platform.
The founders of ixigo will join the Confirmtkt board and existing investors of Confirmtkt, including Venture Catalysts, will be exiting the company fully as a part of the deal, an AI-based travel app based in Gurugram said in a release.
Both companies will continue to run independently, post this acquisition.
Train travel in India is an $8 billion market, with over 25 million passengers taking a train trip every day, pre-COVID.
Resumption of train services and relaxation of lockdown norms have led to swift recovery of reserved train ticketing to near pre-COVID levels.
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, the release said.
Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, Co-Founders, ixigo said – “ixigo and Confirmtkt founders both share the passion and focus to grow the train utility and ticketing space.
By leveraging our combined user base, resources, and tech expertise we will be able to enhance the experience of millions of train travelers in India every day.
The combined entity will have a scale of 35 Million Monthly Active Users, and our endeavor in the coming year will be to drive faster growth and deeper penetration in the ‘Next Billion User’ segment, they said.
Dinesh Kumar Kotha and Sripad Vaidya, Co-Founders, Confirmtkt said we are excited to now join hands with ixigo whose team and products have created new benchmarks in the travel industry. We remain committed as a team towards our joint vision of serving the underserved market segment and to become the first transactional touchpoint for millions of Indian travelers in the times to come.”
