Ixigo's parent firm says investors sell shares worth Rs 176 cr in pre-IPO

Le Travenues Technology Ltd, which operates travel booking platform ixigo, on Friday said its existing sharehoders have completed the sale of equities worth a little over Rs 176 crore in a pre-IPO round.

Those who picked up shares are Ashoka India Equity Investment Trust Plc, Tata Multi Asset Opportunities Fund, Tata Digital India Fund, Bay Capital Holdings and Steadview Capital Mauritius, ixigo co-founders Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar told PTI in an interaction.

The travel aggregator's certain shareholders -- SAIF Partners India IV Ltd, Peak XV Partners Investments V (formerly known as SCI Investments V), Micromax Informatics Ltd, and Catalyst Trusteeship Ltd -- collectively sold 1.89 crore shares to these institutional investors on June 6 at Rs 93 apiece, which is also the upper end of the price band for the company's Rs 740-crore IPO.

At this price, the total transaction is pegged at Rs 176.2 crore. This pre-IPO round has been completed just before the anchor round that opens on Friday.

The Gurugram-based company's initial share-sale will open for public subscription on June 10 and conclude on June 12. Investors will have the opportunity to bid for shares priced in the range of Rs 88-93 apiece.

The initial public offering (IPO) is a combination of fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 120 crore and an Offer For Sale (OFS) of 6.66 crore equity shares to the tune of Rs 620 crore, at the upper end of the price band, by existing shareholders. This translates into a public issue size of Rs 740 crore.

Under the OFS, SAIF Partners India IV Ltd, Peak XV Partners Investments V, Micromax Informatics Ltd, Placid Holdings, Catalyst Trusteeship Ltd, Madison India Capital HC, Bajpai, and Kumar will be selling shares.

Post-issue, Bajpai and Kumar said they will cumulatively hold a 10 per cent stake in the company.

Proceeds worth Rs 45 crore from the fresh issue will be used to fund the company's working capital requirements and Rs 26 crore will be utilised for investments in technology as well as data science, including on cloud and server hosting, technology on artificial intelligence and customer engagement.

Additionally, funds will be used to support inorganic growth through acquisitions, and for general corporate purposes.

Launched in 2007 by Bajpai and Kumar, Le Travenues Technology is the country's leading online travel aggregator, which helps travellers to plan, book and manage their trips across rail, air, buses and hotels.

The company's total income rose to Rs 517 crore in the financial year ended March 2023 from Rs 385 crore in the preceding fiscal. The firm logged a profit of Rs 23.4 crore for the year ended March 2023 whereas it had a loss of Rs 21 crore in the previous financial year.

On the company's turning into black, Kumar said this could be attributed to ixigo turning into an online travel aggregator in 2017. Before that it was a meta-search engine directing users to platforms like MakeMyTrip and ClearTrip.