ixigo acquires train booking app Confirmtkt

AI-based travel app ixigo on Thursday announced that 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, for an undisclosed amount across a mix of cash and ixigo stock. 

As part of the deal, the founders of ixigo will join the Confirmtkt board and existing investors of Confirmtkt, including Venture Catalysts, will be exiting the company fully. Both companies will continue to run independently, post this acquisition. 

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. Confirmtkt has built an innovative and high growth company with a great product-market fit and laser sharp focus on train related use-cases. By leveraging our combined user base, resources, and tech expertise we will be able to enhance the experience of millions of train travellers in India every day.”

“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,” the founders added. 

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According to ixigo, train travel in India is an $8 billion market, with over 25 million passengers taking a train trip everyday, 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, the startup said. 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 II,III,IV markets with its combined user base of nearly 200 million Indians, the company added.

Dinesh Kumar Kotha and Sripad Vaidya, Co-founders, Confirmtkt said,

“We started Confirmtkt with a vision to change the way people book train tickets in India and made it a hassle free experience. 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 travellers in the times to come.” 

Established in 2015, Confirmtkt recorded a revenue of Rs 21.4 crore and an operating profit of Rs 1.54 crore in FY20. Its app on Google Play Store has over 20 million downloads.  

Launched in 2007, Gurugram-based ixigo offers train, flight and bus bookings. The company applies AI for deal discovery, personalised recommendations, airfare predictions and alerts, train delay information, PNR confirmation predictions and fully-automated customer service. ixigo is backed by Sequoia Capital and Elevation Capital, among other investors.