Dutch technology investor Prosus joins India's travel story with Ixigo bet

Global major open to investing in more travel cos in India

Dutch technology investor Prosus has identified India’s travel and hospitality sector as a fast-growing space and is open to investing in more travel firms in the country. This follows Prosus’ recent investment in traveltech platform and online travel aggregator (OTA) ixigo.

   

In early October, the company bought a 10.1 per cent stake in ixigo’s parent, Le Travenues Technology, for ₹1,296 crore. By mid-October, it increased its holding to 15.16 per cent after acquiring an additional 5.06 per cent stake from existing investors Peak XV Partners Investments V and Elevation Capital through off-market transactions.

   

“The travel and hospitality space is an interesting one, and that’s one of the reasons we invested in ixigo. This is potentially a $100 billion category in the next four to five years, so we’re very optimistic about travel. It’s a vast opportunity, and if we come across other interesting companies, of course, we’ll be open to evaluating them as well,” said Gaurav Kothari, principal — investments, Prosus India, in an interview to Business Standard.

   

Having invested over $8.6 billion in India across e-commerce, food delivery, fintech, and now artificial intelligence (AI) — including platforms like Swiggy, Urban Company, and Meesho — Prosus is bullish on India’s travel market. The sector has been buoyed up by rising domestic demand and robust outbound travel growth.

   

“There are certain pockets within the consumption stack that benefit disproportionately as per capita gross domestic product (GDP) rises. We’ve seen this trend in other geographies — when per capita GDP reached a certain level, travel witnessed sharp acceleration. We expect the same in India,” Kothari added.

   

India’s relatively low online penetration in travel was another factor behind Prosus’ investment in ixigo.

   

“Across travel segments — bus, hotel, and more — there’s immense scope for growth and online adoption. Categories like e-commerce already have over 200 million annual transacting users, whereas travel numbers are still much lower. As people grow more comfortable with digital payments and e-commerce, they’ll increasingly book travel online. This underpins our confidence in the growth of the travel and online travel sector,” he said.

   

The group aims to build a $50 billion portfolio in India over the coming years.

   

For ixigo, the capital infusion will help strengthen its AI play, expand into new verticals such as hotel, and provide flexibility for inorganic growth opportunities.

   

“We’re at a very interesting point in history with AI and how it’s set to transform most industries. Having already experimented with multiple AI use cases and seen the upside, we now want to bet bigger on it and double down on areas that are working for us. That’s one of the main reasons we wanted a stronger balance sheet — to take a long-term approach,” said Aloke Bajpai, cofounder and group chief executive officer of ixigo.

   

“We believe the AI-native OTA of 2030 will look and operate very differently from what exists today — across planning, booking, post-booking management, and customer support. We’re imagining that future and will deploy more resources to build it,” he added.