Ixigo is a website and mobile application for travel search engine based in Gurgaon, Haryana. Ixigo does not handle the booking of tickets but instead redirect the user to book directly from the travel provider’s page. They are one of fastest growing fastest growing travel search engine in India.
Founder of Ixigo:
Alok Bajpai:
Alok Bajpai is the founder and CEO of ixigo.com. Alok was born in Allahabad and completed his graduation from IIT Kanpur in Electrical Engineering. After his graduation, he moved to France to work for one of leading European travel technology company “Amadeus”. After working in Amadeus for four years he left the organization to pursue his business studies at INSEAD’s Asia campus Singapore.
Then Alok came back to India to start his own business and met his classmate Rajnish(Co-founder of ixigo). They both agreed to do something in travel industry hence came up with the idea of travel search website ixigo.
How Ixigo is different from other travel websites:
Ixigo has a completely different model from other travel websites like MakeMyTrip and Cleartrip. While these websites are for Flight and train ticket bookings and hotel bookings, ixigo does not handle ticket bookings, but instead, it redirects the users to book directly from the service provider’s page.
Ixigo Business Model:
ixigo is India’s leading travel meta-search and trip planning application. We allow travelers to search across multiple travel booking sites or apps with just one click on ixigo. We do this for flights, hotels, buses, trains, cabs, packages and more, thereby helping travelers find the best travel deals on the web within seconds.
Ixigo’s business model is based on lead-generation for airlines, hotels, bus-booking sites, cab-booking apps etc. and on targeted contextual advertising from brands who wish to target a premium travel audience.
Ixigo Funding:
Ixigo has managed to raise 33.5 million dollars from 5 different investors.
Series A: In Series, A round of funding which took place in 2011 ixigo raised 18.5 million dollars from SAIF Partners and MakeMyTrip.com
Series B: Series B round which took place recently in March 2017 ixigo raised 15 million dollars from Fosun Kinzon Capital, Sequoia Capital
Ixigo revenue model:
Ixigo.com operates as a metasearch platform which leads the user to an OTAs or an airline website to make the final transaction. Ixigo makes its revenue from margin paid by the hotel, airline or the supplier for lead generation.From Airline, bookings ixigo earns margins of 4 to 5% while margins for hotels go as high as 15%. Ixigo is doing more than 2,000 airline bookings daily and the hotel’s bookings are touching 500 per day.
In last financial year, Ixigo cut its expenses to 13 crore rupees from 19 crore rupees and registered 30% jump in revenues to Rs 4.43 crore from Rs 3.42 crore in the previous year.Promoters of the company almost halved its losses for the year and looking for profit in next 6 months to one year.
Ixigo Marketing Strategies:
Ixigo won DMAi Content Marketer Of The Year Award at the Direct Marketing Association India (DMAi) Awards Gala night in Mumbai on 10th February 2016. The award was presented to Aashish Chopra, Head of Content Marketing at ixigo.Known for its marketing innovations, ixigo has been a leader in content marketing with multiple visuals and videos going viral on near zero-budgets on social media.
