Comments
Experiential rewards and recognition start-up Giftxoxo has acqui-hired Bengaluru-based start-up BookMyInterest, a marketplace for hobbies and leisure activities, in a cash-and-stock deal. This is the company’s second acqui-hire in eight months. Last October, Giftxoxo acqu-hired another city-based start-up Yipeedo that helps Bengalureans discover and book leisure activities.
Founded in 2012 by Sumit Khandelwal, Manoj Aggarwal, Abhishek Kumar and Kushal Agrawal with a seed investment of ₹1.5 crore from an HNI, Giftxoxo is in talks for a Series A funding of $3-5 million, which it hopes to close in two weeks.
“We offer 4,000 gifting experiences in five categories — fine dining, health and wellness, adventure, hobbies and arts, and offbeat travel. We believe in acqui-hiring vs regular hiring, as it brings in the requisite dose of passion that is required to drive growth for our business and create value for our customers,” Manoj Aggarwal told BusinessLine .
Searching hobbiesSince the launch of its beta web version in February, BookMyInterest has been facilitating search of verified and rated service providers catering to various interests and hobbies. It has a large database of activities and experiences, from cooking classes to fitness programmes, hikes and expeditions to dance classes.
“We have retained one of BookMyInterest’s co-founders, Naveen M, along with another employee, and let go eight of the other employees as we already have those skill-sets in our 150-strong team. Naveen is a former Everest expeditioner and will enhance our adventure vertical, while BookMyInterest will enrich our hobbies and arts vertical,” added Aggarwal.
The other co-founders of BookMyInterest have received a few lakhs in cash and equity in Giftxoxo. Giftxoxo sold experiential gifting options worth a total of ₹40 crore in FY 2016 to a corporate and retail customer-base.
The start-up is targeting a turnover of ₹100 crore in FY 2017. These experiential gifting options can also be booked from its location-based mobile app Frogo. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Giftxoxo has regional offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.