Gurgaon-based online travel marketplace ixigo, which counts Sequoia Capital, Elevation Capital (formerly called SAIF Partners) and MakeMyTrip as investors, has finalised four investment bankers for its initial public offer (IPO), sources with knowledge of the matter told Moneycontrol.
ixigo is gearing up to become the second firm in the intensely competitive segment to hit the markets in 2021 after rival Easemytrip got listed earlier on March 19.
“ Kotak Mahindra Capital, ICICI Securities, Axis Capital and Nomura have been shortlisted as advisors by the firm for its listing,” said one of the individuals cited above.
Two other individuals confirmed the appointments of the investment bankers to Moneycontrol.
All the three individuals spoke on condition of anonymity.
Moneycontrol is awaiting the response to an email query sent to ixigo, Kotak Mahindra Capital and Axis Capital and will update this article once it hears from them. Nomura and ICICI Securities declined to comment.
On April 5, Moneycontrol was the first to report that ixigo was planning to go public in 2021 and was looking to raise Rs 1,500 crores to Rs 1,800 crores via the IPO.
The listing, a combination of primary and secondary issue of shares, would provide a partial exit to the firm’s investors and also facilitate growth capital. According to the website of the AI-based ixigo, venture capital fund Fosun RZ Capital and Micromax are also investors in the firm.
ixigo, which also competes with the likes of Yatra and Booking.com, helps customers to organise, book and track trips and provides real-time prices and availability for flights, trains, buses, cabs, hotels and destinations. It’s a dominant player in the trains segment and a challenger in the flights and buses category with 36 million monthly unique users across all its apps and the website. The company was launched in 2007 by Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar. In February, it announced the acquisition of Bengaluru-based online train discovery and booking platform Confirmtkt.
In other deal news related to the online travel segment, on March 1, 2021, Moneycontrol was the first to report that Walmart-promoted Flipkart, which is eyeing a mega initial public offer later this year, was in discussions to pick up a controlling stake in Cleartrip.
