Travel Meta Search Ixigo Funded By BAF Partners
By Nikhil Pahwa - Wed 20 Feb 2008 08:47 PM PST
Ixigo.com, a travel meta search company, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from BAF Spectrum, a Singapore based investment fund. The funding was reported by VCCircle yesterday, and we received a release later in the day. There are several online travel agents (OTA) in India, several of them funded (a chart here) , though they appeared to have missed out on this one. Based on the release, the exit route that BAF is eying is a big ticket acquisition:
At a travel conference that most OTAs appeared fearful of the advent of meta search engines in the country, and here’s probably why: meta search engines can aggregate special deals from airline websites that aren’t offered to OTAs. They can also aggregate special deals from OTAs themselves (some of which the OTAs pay for out of their own pockets), thus giving consumers a wider choice, and often better rates. Ixigo was founded by Aloke Bajpai, and was launched in June last year. Going through their site, I also noticed Ixigo Kitchen - particularly liked the idea of a search widget. They also have an SMS search, as do many OTAs. Zoomtra is another travel meta search, from the Smile Interactive stable, which also has a Facebook app.
Posted in: E-commerce, Travel
