Ixigo, a travel company headquartered in Gurgaon, will launch its exclusive booking option called ‘Ixibook’ on its mobile application this week. This feature will be useful for travellers who wish to make hotel and flight bookings on the app itself, thereby not directing the users to the third-party. As the per the company plans, this service will be extended to bus bookings by next month. Also, it will launch a one-click booking service for inter-city cabs.

Aloke Bajpai, Co-founder and CEO of ixigo, stated:

“The idea is to make the booking experience across multiple providers a hassle-free and seamless process rather than directing consumers to the third party website or app. We are trying to become a more vertically integrated player, where we will have a deeper integration with all our partners, so that consumers can complete the transaction within the app through Ixibook.”

Elaborating on the future plans of the company, he quoted:

“Our entire bet is on mobile phones right now because we believe mobile usage will intensify in the next 2-3 years. Already 80% of our users are on mobiles, only 20% on Web. It is growing at 20-25% month-on-month and is already contributing 5% to the total revenue.”

The different launches mentioned above are part of an active ‘monetisation’ exercise that Travenues Technology Pvt. Ltd. – the firm that runs ixigo – has taken up in the past year. This has been marked by the acquisition of The Indian Backpacker and Rutogo last year. Micromax – an Indian consumer electronics company – financially backed ixigo few months back.

A year ago ixigo hired a sales team to associate with smaller businesses and hotels. Also, it signed five new OTAs. It joined hands with Oyo Rooms, monetizing from independent hotels through a marketplace model named Super Value.

Also Read: Ixigo launches ‘Super Value Hotels’ metasearch for budget hotels and aggregators

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ixigo’s cab aggregation app ‘ixigo cabs’ has taken the app world by storm. Available on Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, ‘ixigo cabs’ has emerged as one of the fastest growing player in the category with over 200K app downloads in a time period of six months.

Over a short span of time, ixigo has partnered with more than 10 such app-based taxi and auto-providers across 150 cities in India. As a cab-rental aggregator, ixigo cabs helps travellers look up cabs on multiple platforms at the same time simplifying the process for travellers and allowing them to book low-priced cabs. Few popular cab-rental brands that are available in the app are Uber, Ola, Meru and Jugnoo. Interested travellers can search the cabs with details like fares, ETAs and surge pricing.

Commenting on the same, Alok Bajpai, co-founder and CEO of ixigo, stated:

“Cabs is our fastest growing category with over 200% QoQ growth without any marketing spend. We are now the clear market leaders in the cabs meta-search space, topping 1000 rides per day on app based providers and another 1000 calls per day to offline taxi companies for half-day & full-day hires. We expect to triple these numbers by March.”

One of the key reasons to the rapid growth of ixigo as a brand is the integration of ixigo cabs in two of its mobile apps viz ‘ixigo flights & hotels’ and ‘ixigo trains’. Due to this integration, it has a reach of over 8 million travellers. ixigo also launched its services on Micromax and Yu devices as an exclusive part of the ‘Around Yu’ product offering.

To expand its business network, ixigo has recently associated with many travel firms. It has partnered with BlaBlaCar for inter-city ride-sharing service and acquired Rutogo – the leading inter-city cabs aggregator of India. Elaborating on the same, Venus Dhuria, Business Head of ixigo Cabs, quoted:

“The total market size of the Indian taxi industry is approximately $9 billion. Out of this, nearly $1 billion is organized and $8 billion is still an unorganized market. There are about 2.5 million taxis across India of which around 0.6 million are in the organized intra-city space while the rest are in the unorganized space, mostly running on inter-city routes. We will deepen our partnerships with established app-based cab providers and will also work with select reputed taxi vendors and fleet owners in the inter-city market to serve our travellers who already look at cabs as an alternative to trains and buses on short and medium distance routes.”

With this year coming to an end, ixigo has outperformed many of its competitors in the travel industry. How successful will it be in the coming year is yet to be seen.

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Ixigo, the leading travel search engine based in Gurgaon, is planning to raise $20 million by early next year to further expand its user base and distribution. It has successfully raised $18 million from investors like Saif Partners, MakeMyTrip and Micromax.

To obtain more financial backing, Ixigo is planning to include a fresh set of investors as it enters new segments such as budget hotels, packages and cab services. Elaborating on this business development, Alok Bajpai, the CEO and Co-Founder of the company, quoted:

“We are in talks with existing and new investors. There are plans to sign term sheets by early next year to raise an additional $20 million as we also plan to grow in the B2B space.”

Investors like MakeMyTrip had already dropped stake in the travel search portal from 19.9 per cent to 15 per cent with new investors like Micromax which invested into the company in June this year.

Alok Bajpai added:

“We did raise about $18 million in 2011 with the exit of our angel investors with Saif Partners picking up 40 per cent stake along with Make My Trip whose stake has come down to 15 percent as of now.’

To strengthen its market leadership in mobile travel services for middle-class users, Ixigo is looking forward to an app-based distribution model. Micromax will have pre-embedded Ixigo app on its new model of phones and will thus serve as a major distribution partner for the travel search engine. Ixigo will also create an app based distribution model through third-party apps to increase the distribution base.

Ixigo is exploring new verticals to expand its business. It has added a new segment of hotels called ‘Super Value Hotels’ to attract more people from smaller cities. Its ‘super value hotels’ compares deals across branded budget hotel providers such as OYO Rooms, Zo Rooms, Vista Rooms and independent hotels.

With many leading brands financially backing the company, the travel search engine might easily hit its target of $20 million in the next few months. It is quite clear that Ixigo is aiming to be one of biggest influencers of the travel industry with its expansion and distribution plans.

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