IXIGO: The Story of India's Next Billion Travelers

I. Introduction & Episode Roadmap

Picture this: It's 2007, and while Silicon Valley obsesses over social networks and smartphones, two IIT Kanpur alumni in a cramped Gurgaon office are solving a decidedly unglamorous problem—how to make sense of India's chaotic travel booking landscape. No venture capital, no grand vision statements, just ₹20 lakhs in personal savings and a stubborn refusal to give up.

Fast forward to 2024: Le Travenues Technology, better known as IXIGO, commands a ₹10,000+ crore market cap on the NSE. The company that almost died during the 2008 financial crisis now owns 52% of India's online train booking market—a segment that MakeMyTrip and Goibibo essentially ignored. Revenue has crossed ₹1,047 crores, and here's the kicker: unlike most Indian tech unicorns, they're actually profitable.

The central question isn't just how two engineers built a travel empire. It's how they spotted the one market everyone else missed—the 2.4 crore Indians who travel by train daily, the ones checking their PNR status obsessively, the ones who'd never heard of Expedia but knew exactly when the Rajdhani Express reaches every station. This is the story of betting on India's next billion users before "next billion users" became a venture capital cliché.

What unfolds is a masterclass in strategic patience: from meta-search aggregator to full-stack OTA, from near-bankruptcy to IPO triumph, from Tier-1 afterthought to Tier-2/3 dominance. It's about choosing trains over planes, choosing Bharat over India, and somehow making it all work financially—a rare feat in the cash-burning world of Indian consumer internet.

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II. The Founding Story & Early Vision

The Amadeus office in Nice, France, feels worlds away from Indian railway stations. Yet it's here, in 2006, that Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar—both IIT Kanpur computer science graduates—began plotting their return to India. They'd spent years building reservation systems for global airlines, but something gnawed at them. Every time they tried booking tickets back home for family visits, the experience was a nightmare: scattered information, unreliable websites, no single source of truth.

"We didn't have some grand epiphany," Bajpai would later recall in interviews. "We just knew how painful it was to plan travel in India, and we thought—surely technology can fix this."

They quit their comfortable European jobs in June 2007, pooled together less than ₹20 lakhs between them, and rented a single room in Gurgaon's Sushant Lok. The name 'ixigo' came from a brainstorming session—'I go' transformed into something more brandable. No fancy accelerator, no angel investors knocking. Just two engineers with domain expertise and a problem they'd personally felt.

The initial product wasn't revolutionary—a meta-search engine for flights, aggregating prices from multiple booking sites. Think Kayak for India, except Kayak had $200 million in funding while ixigo had two founders eating Maggi noodles for dinner. What they lacked in capital, they made up in obsessive focus on user experience. While competitors cluttered their sites with banner ads, ixigo kept it clean. While others required registration, ixigo let users search freely.

Within six months, without spending a rupee on marketing, they'd crossed 100,000 users. How? "We were engineers first," Kumar explained. "We understood SEO when Indian travel sites were still buying newspaper ads. We built tools people actually wanted—fare calendars, price alerts, route maps. Every feature came from our own frustrations as travelers."

The duo worked without salaries for the entire first year. When family members questioned their sanity—leaving cushy foreign jobs to burn through savings—they'd respond with user growth charts. The numbers didn't lie: Indians desperately wanted better travel tools. By early 2008, they'd raised a small seed round from Indian angel investors, hired their first five employees, and moved to a proper office. The meta-search model was working, but barely breaking even. They needed something bigger.

Then came September 15, 2008—the day Lehman Brothers collapsed, taking their Series A dreams with it.

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III. The Meta-Search Era & Early Pivots

The term sheet was literally days away from signing. A prominent Silicon Valley VC had committed to leading ixigo's Series A—validation that their meta-search model could scale. Then Lehman imploded, global markets crashed, and venture capital froze overnight. The VC pulled out with a terse email: "Market conditions have changed. We need to pause all new investments."

Bajpai gathered the team—now 25 people—in their Gurgaon office. The math was brutal: three months of runway, maybe four if they cut everything non-essential. "I told them the truth," he recalls. "We might not make it. Anyone who wants to leave, no hard feelings."

What happened next became ixigo lore. A junior engineer, fresh out of college, stood up: "Sir, I'll work without salary if it helps." Others followed. Senior engineers took 50% pay cuts. The sales team worked purely on commission. Product development continued on personal laptops when they couldn't afford new servers.

This near-death experience forced a fundamental rethink. Pure meta-search had razor-thin margins—they were sending customers to other booking sites, earning small referral fees. "We realized we were building someone else's business," Kumar reflected. They needed to own the transaction, not just facilitate discovery.

The pivot began with hotels in late 2008. Instead of just showing prices, they started experimenting with actual bookings through partnerships with smaller properties ignored by MakeMyTrip. By 2009, they'd launched their mobile app—not because mobile was hot (this was pre-Jio India), but because their server costs were killing them and mobile apps could cache data locally. Between 2010 and 2011, the scrappy survival mentality paid off. Traffic grew from 200K to almost a million visitors by April 2010, and they registered their first profitable month by expanding into different verticals while keeping expenses bare minimum. The achievement caught attention. With traffic over a million users a month by 2011, they finally closed an $18.5 million round with SAIF Partners taking 56.7% stake and MakeMyTrip taking 20% stake.

The MakeMyTrip investment was particularly surreal—their biggest competitor was now their shareholder. MakeMyTrip could see synergies with ixigo's informational business, similar to how MakeMyTrip did fulfillment like Swiggy while ixigo did informational discovery like Zomato. But this wasn't exactly a celebration. While it helped keep ixigo alive, selling 75% of the business to investors including a competitor was not necessarily a win.

The mobile revolution started in 2010—not because they were visionaries, but because they were desperate to cut server costs. In 2010, ixigo launched its mobile app, making it one of India's pioneers in mobile travel solutions. The app cached data locally, reducing backend load. By 2011, they'd launched dedicated mobile apps for flights and hotels. The ixigo-flights mobile app was launched in 2011 and allowed users to search and book all travel products.

But the real insight came from watching user behavior. People weren't just searching for flights—they were obsessively checking train schedules, PNR statuses, platform numbers. The data was eye-opening: train queries outnumbered flight queries 10:1, yet no OTA was taking railways seriously. This observation would soon transform everything.

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IV. The Train Revolution & IRCTC Partnership

The eureka moment came not in a boardroom but in a second-class railway compartment. Bajpai was traveling from Delhi to Kanpur in 2013, watching fellow passengers frantically refresh their phones to check PNR status, calling friends to verify platform changes, calculating arrival times on paper. "We'd been so focused on competing with MakeMyTrip on flights," he later said, "that we missed the biggest travel market in India—right there on the tracks."

Ixigo trains app was launched on Android in 2013, with early 2014 seeing the launch of their train ticket booking app. But this wasn't just another booking app. The app was designed to provide various daily utility use cases by helping travelers find train routes, check train running status, coach positions, platform numbers. They built features no one else bothered with: crowd-sourced delay information, platform alerts, coach position using AR, even station alarms that would wake you before your stop.

The masterstroke was treating train travelers not as second-class citizens but as power users. While others focused on flights and hotels, ixigo took the rail route seriously with the ixigo-Trains app providing useful user-generated intercity railway information, earning significant popularity through word-of-mouth from 2014 to 2018. Over 2.4 crore passengers use trains to travel in India.

The IRCTC partnership transformed everything. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation controlled all online train bookings—a government monopoly that terrified most startups. But ixigo negotiated carefully, positioning themselves not as disruptors but as enablers who'd bring better user experience to railway bookings. The agreement, allowing them to act as non-exclusive principal service provider for booking reserved online train tickets, currently runs until April 30, 2028.

Results were staggering. Ixigo captured 46.15% market share in the OTA rail booking market, which increased to 52.4% in the first half of FY24. They'd discovered what Western travel platforms never understood: in India, trains aren't just transportation—they're the circulatory system of a nation. Every feature they added—live tracking, PNR predictions, free cancellation—addressed real pain points of millions who'd been ignored by the digital revolution.

The differentiation went deeper than features. They understood the psychology of Indian train travelers: the anxiety of waitlisted tickets, the confusion of coach positions, the fear of missing stations. Their PNR prediction algorithm, using machine learning on millions of booking patterns, could predict confirmation probability with remarkable accuracy. Station alarms used GPS to wake passengers—crucial for overnight journeys where missing your stop meant disaster.

By 2018, the trains app had become so dominant that many users didn't even know ixigo did flights. This wasn't a bug—it was the feature. They'd found their moat in the most unlikely place: not competing with global giants on international flights, but dominating the uniquely Indian complexity of train travel.

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V. Strategic Acquisitions & House of Brands

The conference room in February 2021 was tense. Confirmtkt's founders sat across from ixigo's leadership, negotiating what would become the first major consolidation in India's train booking space. "We weren't buying a company," Bajpai later explained, "we were buying a philosophy—that train travel in India needed specialized solutions, not generic OTA features."

In February 2021, ixigo acquired the train discovery and ticketing platform Confirmtkt in a cash and stock deal. Confirmtkt had built a cult following among frequent train travelers with their waitlist prediction algorithms and alternate route suggestions. Rather than absorb and eliminate the brand, ixigo kept it independent—a controversial decision that would define their entire M&A strategy.

Six months later came the bigger move. In August 2021, ixigo acquired the bus ticket booking and fleet management portal AbhiBus in a cash and stock deal. AbhiBus dominated South India's bus booking market with deep relationships with private operators. Again, the brand remained independent.

This "house of brands" approach puzzled investors. Why maintain multiple apps, teams, and marketing budgets? The answer lay in India's fragmentation. With 480 million Annual Active Users, its brands—ixigo, Confirmtkt, and abhibus—offered tailored solutions for specific travel needs. Confirmtkt appealed to value-conscious users seeking deals and predictions. AbhiBus served regional markets with vernacular interfaces. Ixigo remained the premium, full-service option.

The multi-app strategy reflected a deeper insight about Indian consumers. Unlike the US where one Expedia serves all, India's linguistic, economic, and cultural diversity demanded specialized approaches. A Telugu-speaking bus traveler in Vijayawada had different needs than a Hindi-speaking train passenger in Lucknow or an English-speaking flight booker in Bangalore.

Each acquisition brought proprietary technology. Confirmtkt's waitlist algorithms improved ixigo's PNR predictions. AbhiBus's operator relationships opened doors to exclusive inventory. The synergies weren't just operational—they were algorithmic, each dataset making the others smarter.

By 2022, the house of brands controlled significant market share across verticals: 52% in trains, growing presence in buses, steady growth in flights. The strategy that seemed inefficient to MBA-trained analysts proved brilliant for serving India's heterogeneous market. They'd built not one travel app but a portfolio attacking different segments with surgical precision.

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VI. The IPO Journey: Timing, Drama & Triumph

August 2021 should have been ixigo's moment. The DRHP was filed for a ₹1,600 crore IPO, investment bankers were celebrating, and the roadshow presentations were polished. India's tech IPO boom was in full swing—Zomato had just listed at a massive premium. Then Bajpai made a call that stunned everyone: "We're pulling the IPO."

The boardroom erupted. Years of preparation, millions in banker fees, the perfect market window—all seemingly wasted. But Bajpai and Kumar had seen something others missed. The froth in tech valuations, the unrealistic growth expectations, the inevitable correction coming. "We'd survived 2008 by being paranoid," Kumar explained. "That same paranoia saved us in 2021."

Their timing proved prophetic. Paytm's November 2021 IPO became India's worst tech debut, falling 27% on day one. The 2022 tech massacre followed—Zomato crashed 70% from peaks, PolicyBazaar down 75%, CarTrade decimated. Had ixigo listed, they'd have been caught in the carnage. Instead, they waited. Through 2022 and 2023, they quietly strengthened fundamentals, integrated acquisitions, improved unit economics. When they finally refiled the DRHP with SEBI in February 2024, the ask was dramatically smaller—just ₹120 crores in fresh issue plus an offer for sale. The humility was strategic: under-promise, over-deliver.

The public issue of ixigo IPO was offered at ₹93.00 per share and the IPO was listed at ₹138.10. It delivered a listing gain of 48.49%. The June 10-12, 2024 bidding window saw overwhelming response—subscribed 98 times, with retail portion covered 57 times. On June 18, 2024, when the bell rang at the NSE, ixigo opened at ₹138.10—a 48.49% premium to the issue price.

The stock touched ₹165.72 on listing day, pushing market cap from ₹3,602 crores pre-IPO to over ₹6,420 crores. Unlike the 2021 tech IPO cohort that destroyed wealth, ixigo delivered immediate returns. The founders' patience had paid off spectacularly.

But the real vindication came from who stayed and who sold. The founders, Rajnish Kumar and Aloke Bajpai, along with key investors such as SAIF Partners India and Peak XV Partners, were selling shares as part of the offer for sale (OFS) component. Yet they retained significant stakes, signaling confidence in the long-term story. This wasn't an exit—it was a graduation.

The IPO timing also reflected market maturity. By 2024, investors had learned to differentiate between cash-burning growth stories and sustainable business models. Ixigo's profitability, dominant market position in rails, and organic user acquisition resonated with a market tired of "growth at any cost" narratives.

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VII. Business Model & The Next Billion Users Thesis

The numbers tell a story that Silicon Valley would never understand: 94.39% of ixigo's transactions originate or conclude in Tier II/III cities. While competitors chase international travelers and premium hotels, ixigo built for the assistant bank manager in Aligarh checking train availability on a ₹6,000 smartphone.

This isn't poverty tourism—it's demographic destiny. India's next billion internet users won't come from South Mumbai or Koramangala. They'll come from places where English isn't the first language, where train travel is preferred over flights, where a saved rupee matters. Ixigo's app is available in 8 languages, each localized not just in text but in user experience design.

The revenue model reflects this reality. Total revenues of ₹500 crores break down revealing: trains contribute 60%, airlines 20%, buses 20%. The train dominance isn't accidental—it's where take rates are highest and customer acquisition costs lowest. Service charges on IRCTC bookings, convenience fees, payment gateway charges, advertisements, and value-added services like ixigo Assured Flex create multiple monetization layers.

Here's what's remarkable: 90% of users are organic. No cashback wars, no discount battles—just word-of-mouth from satisfied users. When a traveler successfully predicts their waitlist confirmation using ixigo's algorithm, they tell five friends. This organic growth loop is the holy grail of consumer internet.

With a market share of about 51% in the OTA rail segment as of March 31, 2023 and 83 million Monthly Active Users across apps as of September 2023, ixigo has achieved what MakeMyTrip couldn't despite 10x higher marketing spend: authentic penetration in Bharat.

The multi-modal approach amplifies network effects. A user books a train ticket, then discovers they can book the bus for the last mile, then the hotel at destination. Cross-selling happens naturally because the user stays within the ecosystem for the entire journey. Average revenue per user grows not through forced upselling but through genuine utility addition.

Recent expansion into hotels (December 2023) wasn't about competing with Booking.com. It was about serving the budget hotel segment—₹800-₹2,000 per night properties in Tier-2 cities that international platforms ignore. These hotels don't have channel managers or revenue optimization teams. They need simple, commission-based distribution—exactly what ixigo provides.

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VIII. Technology & Innovation Platform

Walk into ixigo's Gurgaon office and you'll find something unusual for an Indian OTA: more engineers than salespeople. While competitors outsource tech or rely on third-party platforms, ixigo builds everything in-house. This isn't tech fetishism—it's strategic necessity when serving users with unique needs no global platform addresses.

The crown jewel is their predictive algorithm ecosystem. Using proprietary algorithms processing millions of historical bookings, they can predict PNR confirmation probability, train delays, even platform changes. The ixigo trains app helps travelers find train routes, check train running status, coach positions, platform numbers—features that required calling railway enquiry just years ago.

In July 2023, ixigo became the first OTA in India to launch a Generative AI based travel planning tool named PLAN, providing detailed itineraries and real-time destination information. They also introduced a generative AI plugin for conversational interactions with ixigo PLAN. But unlike Western companies adding AI for buzzword compliance, ixigo's implementation solves real problems: suggesting alternate routes when trains are waitlisted, recommending journey breaks for long trips, even factoring in local festivals affecting availability.

The technical architecture reflects their user base. While Expedia assumes high-bandwidth connections, ixigo's apps work on 2G. While Booking.com requires email verification, ixigo allows WhatsApp authentication. Every technical decision—from progressive web apps to SMS-based PNR checking—optimizes for the reality of Indian infrastructure.

Crowd-sourcing amplifies their data advantage. Millions of users contribute real-time updates on delays, platform changes, coach positions. This isn't just cost-effective data collection—it's community building. Users feel ownership because they're contributors, not just consumers.

The automated customer support system handles 80% of queries without human intervention—crucial when serving price-sensitive customers where human support would destroy unit economics. But automation isn't about avoiding customers; it's about instant resolution in languages they understand, at times they need help (often midnight for early morning trains).

Cross-platform integration creates defensibility. The train app talks to the bus app, which connects to the hotels platform. Data from one improves predictions in another. A delayed train automatically triggers bus rebooking options. This interconnected intelligence is impossible for single-vertical competitors to replicate.

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IX. Competition, Risks & Market Dynamics

The boardroom presentations always show the same slide: MakeMyTrip with 24% market share, ixigo at 6% overall. Investment bankers furrow their brows—how can you win against someone four times your size? The answer lies in what those percentages hide.

MakeMyTrip dominates flights and premium hotels—high GMV, low frequency transactions. Ixigo dominates trains—lower GMV but 10x higher frequency. A MakeMyTrip user books twice yearly for vacation. An ixigo user checks PNR status weekly, books monthly. Engagement, not just transaction value, determines platform power.

The elephant in the room is IRCTC—simultaneously ixigo's most important partner and existential threat. The company's train ticketing services depend entirely on its agreement with IRCTC. Terminating this agreement could prevent the company from providing train ticketing services, significantly impacting its performance, cash flows, financial condition, and business prospects. The current agreement runs until April 30, 2028, but renewal isn't guaranteed.

Yet IRCTC partnership also provides moat. Government relationships in India aren't easily replicable. New entrants can't just throw money at the problem—they need years of trust-building, operational excellence, and understanding of bureaucratic nuances. Ixigo's track record of reliable service and revenue sharing makes them a valued partner, not just a vendor.

The competitive dynamics reveal a paradox: despite MakeMyTrip's dominance, they're still loss-making after two decades. Their customer acquisition costs—driven by competing with global platforms on international routes—destroy profitability. Ixigo's focus on underserved segments means lower competition, better unit economics, path to profitability.

Emerging threats come from unexpected quarters. Google's travel search improvements, WhatsApp's payment integration, even Paytm's travel ambitions—each could disrupt distribution. But ixigo's embedded position in travel workflow—from inspiration to booking to journey tracking—creates switching costs competitors underestimate.

The multi-brand strategy provides competitive buffer. Even if ixigo brand faces pressure, Confirmtkt and AbhiBus operate independently. This portfolio approach—different brands for different segments—makes frontal assault difficult. Competitors must fight multiple battles simultaneously.

Risk mitigation involves continuous diversification. Hotels launched in 2023, international flights being explored, even vacation packages being tested. Each new vertical reduces IRCTC dependency while leveraging existing user base. The goal isn't to abandon train dominance but to build additional pillars supporting the platform.

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X. Playbook: Business & Investment Lessons

The conference rooms of Mumbai's investment banks are filled with pitches about "India's next unicorn," but ixigo's journey offers contrarian lessons. First: the power of patient capital. Working without salaries for a year, surviving 2008 without mass layoffs, withdrawing IPO in 2021—each decision prioritized long-term sustainability over short-term optics.

The "next billion users" wasn't just marketing—it was product philosophy. Every feature answered a real problem: station alarms for overnight travelers, vernacular interfaces for non-English speakers, offline functionality for patchy connectivity. This isn't "building for Bharat" as charity; it's recognizing that Bharat is the market.

Strategic acquisition timing revealed discipline. Confirmtkt and AbhiBus weren't bought at peak valuations during 2021's frenzy. They were acquired when valuations were reasonable, integration was feasible, and synergies were clear. The house of brands strategy—keeping them independent—respected their unique market positions rather than forcing homogenization.

Capital efficiency distinguishes ixigo from peers. In FY24, the company's net profit surged to INR 73.1 crore, more than tripling from INR 23.4 crore in FY23. This profitability wasn't achieved through financial engineering but through fundamental business model advantages: organic user acquisition, high-frequency engagement, multiple monetization layers.

The multi-app versus single-app debate misses the point. It's not about app architecture—it's about market segmentation. Different user segments have different jobs-to-be-done. A unified app satisfying everyone satisfies no one. Ixigo's portfolio approach allows specialized excellence rather than generalized mediocrity.

The importance of organic growth cannot be overstated. With 90% organic users, customer acquisition cost approaches zero for marginal users. This isn't achievable through growth hacking—it requires genuine product-market fit. When users become evangelists, marketing budgets become innovation funds.

Timing markets requires courage and contrarian thinking. Withdrawing the 2021 IPO looked like failure but proved prescient. Re-entering in 2024 with modest valuations and proven profitability resonated with a matured market. Sometimes the best move is not moving.

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XI. Future Outlook & Strategic Priorities

The numbers paint an encouraging picture: operating revenue at ₹491 crores for nine months of FY24, profit of ₹65.7 crores. But the real opportunity lies in what's just beginning. The December 2023 entry into hotel bookings isn't just another vertical—it's the completion of the travel stack.

Hotels represent a ₹50,000 crore opportunity in India, growing at 20% annually. But ixigo isn't chasing five-star properties in Mumbai. They're aggregating budget hotels in Tier-2 cities—properties that don't even have websites, let alone distribution partnerships. The same playbook that worked in trains—solving real problems for underserved segments—applies here.

The bus segment, through AbhiBus, offers higher take rates and contribution margins than trains. With 12.5% market share, they're already second-largest bus OTA. The opportunity isn't just in booking but in the entire ecosystem: operator management systems, fleet tracking, dynamic pricing tools. Every service layer adds stickiness and revenue.AI investments aren't just buzzword compliance. In Q3 FY25, ixigo achieved their best quarter ever, hitting all-time high records for MAU, GTV, Revenue from Operations as well as EBITDA. For 9M FY25 vs 9M FY24 they doubled their EBITDA from ₹34 Crores to ₹68 Crores while gaining market share in all lines of business. The AI-based agentic tools being developed will enable conversational booking, predictive rebooking during disruptions, and personalized travel planning—features that matter to users facing complex multi-modal journeys.

International expansion remains measured. Instead of competing globally, they're focusing on routes with high Indian diaspora—Dubai, Singapore, Nepal. These markets understand Indian payment methods, appreciate Indian language support, and value the features built for Indian travelers. It's globalization through the Indian lens.

The IRCTC dependency, while risky, is being systematically reduced. The train segment contributed the most to revenue pie in Q3 FY25, growing 24% YoY to rake in ₹119.67 Cr, but the biggest jump of 44% YoY came in flight revenue, which soared to ₹68.52 Cr. This diversification isn't abandoning strength but building resilience.

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XII. Recent News

Travel booking platform ixigo on Monday announced that it has expanded its exclusive partnership with PhonePe to offer flight and bus bookings on the fintech platform's app. The two companies had joined hands to offer booking services for trains. The expanded partnership will enable over 54 crore PhonePe users to experience more comprehensive travel booking and utility services for flights, trains and buses, ixigo said. As part of the collaboration, ixigo will exclusively power these travel booking options on PhonePe, integrating services from ixigo flights for flight booking.

Ixigo arm, AbhiBus, entered into a pact with Europe's largest intercity bus service, FlixBus, and plans to provide high-quality, yet affordable bus services. This international partnership marks ixigo's first major global collaboration, potentially opening doors to cross-border travel services.

Ixigo And Amadeus Forge Enhanced Travel Distribution Partnership in March 2025. Ixigo's recent partnership with Amadeus indicates a focus on enhancing airline content. This presents an opportunity for collaboration with other industry players to offer integrated travel solutions to customers.

Ixigo launched the ultimate guide to Maha Kumbh 2025: Prayagraj train and flight bookings surge by 2.6X. Ixigo, India's leading online travel agency has introduced a comprehensive microsite to assist travellers, pilgrims, and devotees in planning for Maha Kumbh 2025, taking place in Prayagraj from January 13 to February 26, 2025. Ixigo has launched a dedicated microsite for Maha Kumbh 2025, offering pilgrims a one-stop solution for booking travel and exploring Prayagraj's rich spiritual heritage.

Ixigo Trains app launched a 'Travel Guarantee' feature, refunding triple the ticket fare for waitlisted tickets upon chart preparation. Ixigo's introduction of the 'Travel Guarantee' feature for train travelers positions it as a direct competitor to MakeMyTrip. Leveraging similar innovative features can establish a strong competitive edge in the market.

Financial performance continues to strengthen. Ixigo's gross transaction volume (GTV) rose 48% to INR 4,036.3 Cr during Q3 FY25 from INR 2,718.3 Cr in Q3 FY24. Including other income of INR 5.23 Cr, ixigo's total revenue for the quarter rose 41% YoY to INR 246.99 Cr. The train segment contributed the most to its revenue pie, growing 24% YoY to rake in INR 119.67 Cr. The biggest jump of 44% YoY came in its flight revenue, which soared to INR 68.52 Cr. Meanwhile, revenue from the bus segment climbed 35% YoY to INR 51.54 Cr.

"Q3 FY25 has been our best quarter ever! We hit new all-time high records for MAU, GTV, Revenue from Operations as well as EBITDA this quarter. For 9M FY25 vs 9M FY24 we have doubled our EBITDA from Rs.34 Crores to Rs.68 Crores while gaining market share in all our lines of business. With continued investments in new areas including hotels and AI-based agentic tools, we remain optimistic about our ability to grow faster than the overall OTA market in the mid-term," said Rajnish Kumar, Group Co-CEO, ixigo and Aloke Bajpai, Group CEO.

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XIII. Links & Resources

Company Resources: - Investor Relations Portal: investors.ixigo.com - DRHP Documents: Available on SEBI website - Annual Reports: investors.ixigo.com/financials/

Industry Analysis: - F&S Report on Indian OTA Market - RedSeer Consulting Travel Reports - IBEF Travel & Tourism Analysis

Key Interviews & Media: - Economic Times Startup Awards 2021 - Comeback Kid Category - Entrepreneur Awards 2021 - Travel Service Business Winner - Founder interviews on building for Bharat

Technology & Product: - ixigo PLAN AI Travel Planner Documentation - ixigo Assured Flex Service Details - API Documentation for Partners

Financial Analysis: - NSE/BSE Historical Price Data - Quarterly Results Archives - Analyst Coverage Reports

Books & Further Reading: - "The Indian Startup Ecosystem" - Understanding Tier 2/3 Markets - "Platform Revolution" - Network Effects in Digital Markets - "Zero to IPO" - Indian Tech Company Journeys

The ixigo story isn't just about building a travel platform. It's about recognizing that India's digital revolution wouldn't happen in English-speaking metros but in the heartland where trains matter more than planes, where saved rupees count, and where trust is earned through utility, not advertising. As India's next billion users come online, ixigo has positioned itself not as a follower of global models but as the architect of a uniquely Indian digital experience. The question for investors isn't whether ixigo can compete with global giants—it's whether global giants can compete with ixigo's understanding of Bharat.