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Gurugram-based travel marketplaceixigo has initiated talks to raise $75 million in its Series C funding. The funds could be used to invest in tech and travel start-ups.
The primary focus of the fund-raising, however, will be towards expansion of the company’s engineering team, ramping up of research and development, new products and customer acquisition.
Aloke Bajpai, CEO and co-founder, ixigo, said the investments could be in companies with which ixigo has synergies. “It is still too early to comment. But we may look at strategic investment in niche start-ups,” he told BusinessLine . “We are talking to a new set of investors. Existing ones could also come in,” Bajpai added. The company raised a Series B funding of $15 million in March 2017. ixigo’s ’s investors include Sequoia Capital, Fosun, SAIF Partners, Micromax Informatics and MakeMyTrip.
Bajpai said the firm has been profitable at a unit level over the past 18 months. But marketing expenses and fixed cost remain. Investments are being used for customer acquisition.
“We are acquiring bottom- and middle-of-the-pyramid customers, and a large part of these are regional language users,” he said, adding that the company is targeting metro and non-metro users with different offerings. For instance, ‘ixigo flight app targets tier I cities, while the ixigo train app targets tier II, III and IV cities.
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