Travel aggregator ixigo announces acquiring train ticket app Confirmtkt

Online travel aggregator ixigo has acquired Confirmtkt, a Bengaluru-based train ticket app, for an undisclosed sum, said the company on Thursday.

"The founders of ixigo will join the Confirmtkt board and existing investors of Confirmtkt, including Venture Catalysts, will be exiting the company fully as a part of the deal. Both companies will continue to run independently, post this acquisition," ixigo said in a statement.

Train travel in India is an $8 billion market, with more 25 million passengers shuttling daily before the Covid-19 pandemic struck the country. Booking is resuming swiftly as train services resume after lockdowns to contain the pandemic’s spread. 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 2/3/4 markets with its combined user base of nearly 200 million Indians. 

"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,” said Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar, co-founders of ixigo in a statement. 

Confirmtkt was established in 2015 by Dinesh Kumar Kotha and Sripad Vaidya. It earned Rs.21.4 crore as revenue and Rs.1.54 crore as operating profit in FY20.