Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

Ezeego, the online travel market place, has tied up with Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd., to provide easy travel bookings and other travel related services. The tie-up enables the OxiCash users and Oxigen retailers across India to transact and buy travel products from Ezeego.  This tie up will certainly boost Ezeego to provide easy travel booking services to the masses of India, ezeego definitely wants to catch up with Makemytrip, Cleartrip and Yatra in the travel booking space.

The association will offer easy transactional service to the customers who do not have credit/debit cards, net banking accounts or cannot get access to PC’s to purchase their travel online or prefer using a cash payment mechanism online.  The tie up will also enable the 25,000 Oxigen web retailers to automatically become Ezeego1′s travel agents.

This gives an option for a walk in customer to purchase their ezeego1 travel tickets by paying cash over-the-counter. OxiCash e-Wallet and OxiCash Card users can now choose from the wide range of holiday packages, flight options and hotels available on Ezeego1 website. The customer will get the option of paying through OxiCash after an easy standard registration and booking process.

According to Neelu Singh, COO, Ezeego1.com, “We have always been pioneers in introducing new services and with Oxigen we found a unique opportunity to strengthen our distribution among the masses that prefer cash as a means to transact. It will enable the customer to have the opportunity to book instantly using the online medium even as he uses the cash mechanism.”

Speaking on the occasion of this tie up, Pramod Saxena, Chairman, Oxigen Services India Private Limited stated, “Oxigen is geared & committed to add value whilst enhancing its bouquet of services that the common man can access. We can now help the Customer who is not computer savvy, nor has a credit card to access online travel services, to transact with ease. This tie up will also make Oxigen web retailers, extension counters, for ezeego1′s Travel Agent network”.

-Deepti, vcBytes.com

Minkle, a mobile app development startup has launched their first flight booking app called Minkle Fly targetted at frequent flyers, business travelers. Minkle Fly is powered by Cleartrip i.e all the bookings are done through Cleartrip. Flight bookings are stored in app itself and beside flight booking user can cancel its flight booking from the app. Minkle Fly is integrated with  IVR payment gateway for safe and secure transaction

Minkle fly app is quite easy to use, its UI is refreshingly cool and highly intuitive. More than flight booking Mnkle fly enables user to book a radio cab to drop or receive you from the airport on booking a flight via Minkle Fly. Minkle fly also contains a feature built on top of Twitter called Minkle Airport which will encourage people to interact in the airport (Am i hearing dating )

Minkle fly app can be downloaded in a GPRS supported handset. User has to point to m.minkle.in in the phone browser to download the app. Minkle is one of “The Morpheus” portfolio company from batch 4 – 2010.

I personally liked the app, quite useful. But can it succeed in migrating users who book flight tickets from Cleartrip through their mobile phones without installing any app, Let’s wait and watch.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

NASSCOM has awarded iXiGO as one of the top 10 emerging companies for 2010 at the Delhi edition of the NASSCOM EMERGOUT Conclave 2010. The winners, chosen from a total of 236 initial applicants, include companies that provide a range of IT services covering healthcare, education and training, banking, travel and social networking.

NASSCOM through its EMERGE 50 initiative has identified 50 Emerging companies which are redefining the benchmark of excellence for the next generation of SMEs. The EMERGE 50 – The League of Ten, have been selected from these shortlisted companies. The purpose of this initiative is to identify and recognize the great potential companies in the making, who can be treated as role models and inspiration to others.

iXiGO.com empowers consumers by providing them the ability to search prices and availability across 100+ travel booking sites for flights (domestic and international), hotels (domestic & international), buses, deals etc. in a few seconds. In just 3 years, iXiGO’s deeply embedded global relationships in the Travel and Internet Industry have helped it successfully establish itself as a credible distribution and media platform for airlines, hotels, online travel agents as well as advertisers looking for consumers with an ability and willingness to transact online.

iXiGO.com is currently India’s fastest growing travel site, registering a growth of over 200% YoY in 2009-10, and generates a total transaction value of almost $4M every month. The company has previously been named a NASSCOM Top 100 Innovator for 2007.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Makemytrip makes a debut in NASDQQ and what a dream run for MMT in the 1st day of listing.  To be sure, the deal was modest – the company sold just $70 million worth of stock, selling 5 million shares at $14 apiece.

Upon listing India’s biggest online travel company surged as much as $10.35 to $24.35 thus making a MakeMyTrip’s stock price jumped 89 percent in the first day of trading. That’s the biggest first-day jump for any U.S. stock since 2007. So seems to be good time ahead for India Companies and MMT certainly leading the way and giving cue to other indian tech companies. Good times ahead for MMT and it reflects in their home page, a snapshot attached below

What is the best way for VC to exit a portfolio company? Undoubtedly it is listing in a Stock Exchange. Indeed good times for investors like SAIF, Helion Venture capital, Seirra Ventures who invested in MMT, returns are staggering.

But someone out is here to spoil their party and i must say what a time to act. The promoters of Cox & Kings, one of the oldest travel companies in the world, have filed a criminal case against Makemytrip. According to Cox & Kings which owns Ezeego1, between 2007 and 2008 the Makemytrip management created the similar looking URLs to deceive customers and eventually lead them to their own site.

Isn’t it an interesting twist in this IPO.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

OTA firm Via, formerly Flightraja has raised close to $10M USD from Sequoia Capital. Earlier Via has raised around $5M USD from NEA-Indo US Venture. This investment is a good sign for resurgent OTA industry and investment has come in after a long gap in this indusrty. Via provides services like bookings for flights, railways, buses and holidays.

OTA’s still remain favorite among VC’s and OTA’s like Cleartrip, MMT, Travelguru have earlier raised huge investment from prominent Indian VC’s.

Via main business comes from traditional travel agents who are provided with Via booking terminal to book tickets for customers. B2B model is paying good results for Via, not significant of revenue is generating from their B2C model though.

Via started in 2006 is founded by Vinay Gupta, Amit Aggarwal, Rohit Gaddi, Harsh Azad.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com