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busIndia.com, the largest bus ticketing portal in the world and at least two times larger than redbus.in, is planning to raise over Rs 200 crore from private equity funds.
The Chairman and CEO of busIndia.com’s parent, the Bangalore-based Radiant Info, Venu Myneni told Business Line that the exact amount of funding is being worked out currently though several PE funds have already shown interest in the company.
Myneni, however, did not say how much stake he was willing to sell in return of funds. redbus.in was valued at slightly over $100 million after the South African group, ibibo acquired it.
busIndia.com currently sells about 50,000 tickets daily and has revenues of about Rs 100 crore while parent Radiant Info has revenue of about Rs 400 crore. Radiant Info has offices in the US. While its Indian office operates busIndia.com and work from State transport corporations, the US offices carry out work in the area of IT services. The group has about 1,000 employees.
Eyes acquisition
Myneni said the funds will be used to acquire smaller bus ticketing companies and for setting up operations in other Asian countries as well as in Africa.
Radiant was the first Indian company to start bus ticketing portal but confined itself to selling tickets of State road transport corporations. It also operates ticketing platforms of several State transport corporations on a transaction-based commission basis that ranges between Rs 5 and Rs 10 per ticket sold. Usually, the contract with RTCs is for five years and is renewed through fresh bids.
Myneni said busIndia.com has now started selling tickets for private operators and offers bookings for taxi service and hotels. “We will soon be covering 80 per cent of bus inventory in the entire country,” he said. Myneni along with partners, Vinod Koduru and C. Narasimhacharlu own Radiant.
Flight tickets
The portal will also start selling flight tickets very soon and set up offline counters in Government offices such as post offices and even in shopping malls.
“Any business entity can become our agent to offer our services and it can even include those who run Internet parlours,” Myneni said.
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