Online travel portal MakeMyTrip, is picking up 28% stake in travel community portal, HolidayIQ, for a consideration of about R95 Cr ($15 Mn), valuing the company at around R340 Cr. The deal is expected to be completed in August this year. With the deal, MakeMyTrip aims to strengthen its hotel and tour package business and Holiday IQ plans to use the funds to grow its capabilities on content, mobile and product. Last September, MakeMyTrip set up an innovation fund of $15 million to invest in startups and in January this year, had picked up a minority stake in Bengaluru based hotel marketing solutions provider, Simplotel Technologies Private Limited. In april this year, it had acquired VC backed travel planning app MyGola for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2003 by Hari Nair, HolidayIQ (operated by Leisure & Lifestyle Information Services Pvt Ltd) is a holiday information portal allowing travelers to discover vacation choices, then plan holiday trips a dn share holiday experiences with other travelers. The company has been in operations for a decade now and has about 50,000 hotels listed on the website with 2000 destinations and 15000 attractions. The portal claims to get 50 Lac unique monthly visitors every month and aims to reach out to 25million people in the next three years. It derives its revenue from online travel agencies, traditional travel agencies and hotels and has tied up with other players like MakyMyTrip, Yatra and Cleartrip. MakeMyTrip is the parent of MakeMyTrip (India) Private Limited MakeMyTrip Inc. (USA), MakeMyTrip FZ LLC (UAE), Luxury Tours & Travel Pte Ltd (Singapore), Luxury Tours (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, the Hotel Travel Group (Thailand) and the ITC Group (Thailand) offering air tickets, customized holiday packages, hotel bookings, railway tickets, bus tickets, car hire and facilitating access to travel insurance.
Source: dealcurry.comMakeMyTrip To Acquire Stake In HolidayIQ
Industry: Travel & Tourism 2015-11-27