Ibibo Group is an online Indian travel organisation founded in January 2007 by Ashish Kashyap. The company is a subsidiary of MakeMyTrip (MMT) Limited, which owns a 100% stake in Ibibo Group. Group owns the

B2C Direct-to-consumer (DTC) or business-to-consumer (B2C) is the business model of selling products directly to customers and thereby bypassing any third-party retailers, wholesalers, or any other middlemen. Direct-to-consumer sales are usually tr ...

online travel aggregator Goibibo, and online bus ticketing platform

RedBus.in redBus is an Indian online bus ticketing platform, providing ticket booking facilities through its website and iOS and Android mobile apps. It is headquartered in Bangalore and works like a hub, acting as a medium for a network of more than ...

. On 31 January 2017, MakeMyTrip (MMT) made a strategic combination with the ibibo Group by way of an acquisition of 100% equity interest in the ibibo Group from MIH Internet, an indirect subsidiary of Naspers, pursuant to a Transaction Agreement dated 18 October 2016.

History

Ibibo started as a

social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

in 2007, and later changed to become an e-commerce and travel organisation. In 2009 Goibibo.com was launched.

Acquisition and investments

Bixee

Bixee is a former

job search engine An employment website is a website that deals specifically with employment or careers. Many employment websites are designed to allow employers to post job requirements for a position to be filled and are commonly known as job boards. Other emplo ...

for India, and an example of both

vertical search A vertical search engine is distinct from a general web search engine, in that it focuses on a specific segment of online content. They are also called specialty or topical search engines. The vertical content area may be based on topicality, media ...

and

metasearch A metasearch engine (or search aggregator) is an online information retrieval tool that uses the data of a web search engine to produce its own results. Metasearch engines take input from a user and immediately query search engines for results. ...

(not to be confused with Bixby, Samsung's voice assistant). It was launched in late 2005. The company also launched Pixrat, which is a social photo bookmarking service. Bixee was acquired by ibibo, the Indian arm of the

South African media The mass media in South Africa has a large mass media sector and is one of Africa's major media centres. While South Africa's many broadcasters and publications reflect the diversity of the population as a whole, the most commonly used language i ...

giant

Naspers Naspers Limited is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town, with interests in online retail, publishing and venture capital investment. Naspers' principal shareholder is its ...

, in

December December is the twelfth and final month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is also the last of seven months to have a length of 31 days. December got its name from the Latin word ''decem'' (meaning ten) because it was or ...

2006.

Goibibo

Goibibo was launched in 2009 and is part of ibibo Group. It was co-founded by

Sanjay Bhasin Sanjay, also spelled Sanjai, Sanjey, Sanje, Sanjaey and Sunjay, is a male given name of Sanskrit origin meaning "triumphant" (from Sañjaya) and may refer to: People * Sanjaya, an important character in the ancient Indian epic ''Mahabharata'' * San ...

and

Vikalp Sahni Ibibo Group is an online Indian travel organisation founded in January 2007 by Ashish Kashyap. The company is a subsidiary of MakeMyTrip (MMT) Limited, which owns a 100% stake in Ibibo Group. Group owns the B2C online travel aggregator Goibi ...

. Goibibo is India's largest hotels aggregation and also one of the leading air aggregator.

PayU India

In 2011, Ibibo rolled out its

payment gateway A payment gateway is a merchant service provided by an e-commerce application service provider that authorizes credit card or direct payments processing for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. The ...

innovation called PayU in the Indian market, to permit websites to integrate e-commerce transactions through online payments. With PayU, a business can process payment by using

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

s and

debit card A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The term '' plastic card'' includes the above and as an identity document. These are similar to a credit card, but u ...

s (for more than 50 banks), and

online banking Online banking, also known as internet banking, web banking or home banking, is an electronic payment system that enables customers of a bank or other financial institution to conduct a range of financial transactions through the financial inst ...

for banks including

ICICI ICICI Bank Limited is an Indian Private bank. It is headquartered at Mumbai. It offers a wide range of banking products and financial services for corporate and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and specialized subsidiari ...

, HDFC, SBI, and

Axis Bank Axis Bank Limited, formerly known as UTI Bank (1993–2007), is an Indian banking and financial services company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It sells financial services to large and mid-size companies, SMEs and retail businesses. As ...

. PayU provides an

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

for integration and transaction analytics to improve the speed and security of payment processing. PayU India launched of a first-of-its kind premium deferral payment facility for

consumers A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...

'LazyPay' aimed at those who transact digitally for any amount between ₹500 and ₹2,500 and is an option to pay later.

redbus.in

Redbus.in redBus is an Indian online bus ticketing platform, providing ticket booking facilities through its website and iOS and Android mobile apps. It is headquartered in Bangalore and works like a hub, acting as a medium for a network of more than ...

became a part of ibibo group via a 100% acquisition in June 2013. redBus is India's most popular online bus ticketing platform, both on mobile and on

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

. The business also owns BOGDS, a

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

service for bus operators, and SeatSeller, a GDS for bus inventory distribution. redBus has recently started its carpooling and bike pooling platform called rPool in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

YourBus

In March 2014 ibibo Group acquired

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

-based bus tracking startup YourBus. YourBus, founded by BITS-Pilani graduates Rajesh Mallipeddi and Satya Padmanabham in 2011, is a GPS-based bus tracking and

analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...

platform. The YourBus application on a smartphone shows users the location of a bus in real time on a map. It also tells the users about the

arrival time Time of arrival (TOA or ToA) is the absolute time instant when a radio signal emanating from a transmitter reaches a remote receiver. The time span elapsed since the time of transmission (TOT or ToT) is the ''time of flight'' (TOF or ToF). Time diff ...

at their pick-up point along with

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

updates.

Djubo

In August 2015 ibibo Group bought a minority stake in cloud-based hotel services startup Djubo for an undisclosed amount. Djubo, founded in February 2015 by Tarun Gulati and Sankalp Goel, manages hotel bookings for over 100 hotels through a single interface.

redbus.pe and redbus.co

In July 2016 Redbus acquired

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

-based bus tracking startup Busportal. In 2017 they founded a chapter of Redbus in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. The company received ₹10.7 Crores infusion of funding from its

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

-based parent company Ibibo Group Holdings. Prior to this, in November 2019, It had also received ₹71.73 Crores.

MakeMyTrip & Goibibo Group Merger

In October 2016, India based online travel company MakeMyTrip, a Nasdaq listed firm and ibibo Group, India's largest travel group agreed to merge in a stock transaction, to form the country's biggest online travel company Both these online platforms have

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

AI-powered chatbots named Myra and Gia respectively.

References

{{Reflist, 30em Internet properties established in 2007 Defunct social networking services Online companies of India Indian travel websites