MakeMyTrip to invest USD 15 mn in HolidayIQ

Online travel firm MakeMyTrip will invest USD 15 million (over Rs 95 crore) to pick up around 28 per cent stake in the holiday information portal HolidayIQ.
The company has signed an agreement for the acquisition of a minority stake and will pick up around 28 per cent stake in HolidayIQ for USD 15 million, MakeMyTrip said in a statement.
Commenting on the development, MakeMyTrip.Com Founder and Group CEO Deep Kalra said: "HolidayIQ operates in a very exciting space in the Indian online travel market.
"Their pace and appetite for innovation matches ours, and we see great synergy in our focus on Hotels and Mobile. The opportunity to drive scale jointly is fairly significant."

This investment will enable both companies to rapidly scale up hotel content and reviews for Indian customers, and provide more offerings to their visitors, MakeMyTrip said.
"This capital gives us additional resources to expand quickly and strategically and accelerate pace of product innovation. We look forward to working closely with MMT in getting a much larger number of Indian travellers to participate in the creation of Indian traveller opinion," HolidayIQ Founder & CEO Hari Nair said.

The funds will mainly be used to further strengthen capabilities on content, mobile and product, Holiday IQ said adding that it had raised series A before from Tiger Global and Accel Partners.

"This tie-up will power our hotel-growth strategy, and also provide immense value to Indian travellers in the form of user generated and curated trip-planning content. We also expect to rapidly scale our reviews and recommendation engine as an outcome of this investment," MakeMyTrip.Com Co-Founder and CEO-India Rajesh Magow said.
The funds will mainly be used to further strengthen its capabilities on content, mobile and product, HolidayIQ said.
Earlier, HolidayIQ had raised series A from Tiger Global and Accel Partners.
Currently, HolidayIQ has over a million holiday reviews from Indian travellers, which is expected to increase multi-fold over the next two years.