MakeMyTrip to buy travel planner Mygola - Livemint

Mygola was founded in 2009 as a travel planning firm.

Mumbai: Online travel agency MakeMyTrip (India) Pvt. Ltd will acquire travel planning website Mygola Inc. and its assets for an undisclosed sum. The entire Mygola team will join MakeMyTrip and focus on cutting-edge innovation in online travel, said MakeMyTrip in a statement.

"Mygola's deep understanding of travellers' planning and in-destination experience preferences will be invaluable in extending our footprint on both sides of the travel funnel," said Rajesh Magow, co-founder and chief executive office, MakeMyTrip.

Founded in 2009 by Anshuman Bapna and Prateek Sharma, Mygola covers more than 20,000 destinations worldwide and has half a million organic visitors a month.

Chief executive Bapna said the company has always taken pride in being laser-focused on the traveller's needs and rethinking online travel planning.

MakeMyTrip has diversified through small acquisitions. It has luxury tours and hotel booking websites. The firm's services and products include air tickets, customized holiday packages, hotel bookings, railway tickets, bus tickets, car hires and facilitating access to travel insurance.

"Mygola's team is its biggest strength. Travel planning and in-destination discovery is the most exciting space in terms of future growth on mobile," said Aloke Bajpai, co-founder and CEO of Ixigo.com, a Gurgaon-based travel search engine.

MakeMyTrip owns a minority stake in Ixigo.

In October 2013, Mygola.com had raised $1.5 million in Series A funding from new and existing investors, with plans to use the funds for expanding presence in the US. This was the second round of fundraising for the start-up.

In December 2011, the Bengaluru-based Mygola raised about $1 million in seed funding from angel investors and venture capital firms such as Blumberg Capital, and Dave McClure, founder of Silicon Valley-based accelerator 500 Start-ups.

Mygola also has a partnership with travel website Expedia.com and gets commission by redirecting customers to Expedia for itinerary bookings.

Earlier, Mygola used to operate as a pay-what-you-want online travel concierge, where users sought travel advice. For the first question that users asked, they had the option of not paying and would get responses from a guide at Mygola within 24 hours. If they paid a minimum of $1, they could ask a second question, and so on.

The Mygola acquisition will help MakeMyTrip enhance its offerings. Online ticketing firms are evolving into larger travel companies they've aspired to be—providing hotel rooms, holiday packages, car rentals, and bus and rail bookings.

This also reduces their dependency on air ticketing, what with the aviation industry remaining volatile.

via Business - Google News http://ift.tt/1G78pUi