Ibibo Group, which claims to be India’s largest online travel group, has raised $250 million in new funding from majority stakeholder Naspers Group.
In an announcement, Ibibo Group said the new funding will be spent on its hotels vertical and technology. The company recently launched a new platform called GoStays that helps travelers on a budget find low-priced accommodations. Hotel booking is an important area of focus for India’s online travel companies, including Ibibo Group competitors MakeMyTrip and Yatra, as they contend with new startups like OYO and Zo Rooms.
Ibibo Group, which is also backed by Chinese Internet giant Tencent, operates hotel and flight booking platform Goibibo.com, as well as bus ticketing sites RedBus and YourBus. Ibibo Group claims it processed 6.5 million transactions from October to December 2015, with 1.6 million hotel rooms booked during that period, a 400 percent year-over-year increase. Ibibo says traffic from mobile devices accounted for 71 percent of bookings in December 2015, up 42 percent from a year earlier.
In a statement, Naspers Group chief executive officer Bob van Dijk said “The Indian e-commerce market, and the online travel segment in particular, offers exciting growth prospects for us as a group. With a talented, proven management team and exceptional technology, Ibibo is well positioned to benefit from an increasing number of people using online travel services going forward.”