Continuing with its horizontal expansion into additional areas of business, Paytm has made one more acquisition, this time in the hospitality sector. NightStay is the name of the startup and is a Delhi-based enterprise.
NightStay specializes in offering hotel rooms in luxury hotels in major cities in India at attractive tariffs. This is made possible by their keeping a tab on unsold inventory. Hotels would want their occupancy rates to be maximum and if they have rooms lying vacant, wouldn’t mind selling them at discounts. It becomes a win-win deal for both and NightStay makes this happen through its app which works on ‘members only’ basis. The cities covered include Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
Paytm had paid $20 million for this acquisition and it adds one more business vertical on its platform, starting with the e-wallet, digital payments, Paytm Mall, movie ticketing (through acquisition of TicketNew) and other businesses. The ticketing business appears to be doing reasonably well. It has emerged as a leading reseller of railway tickets on the IRCTC platform as well.
In terms of funding, NightStay had raised seed funding of $500,000 from Bedrock Venture Management, followed by an additional round of funding and the total amount raised is being reported at $10 million. The other investors are Lets Venture and Indian Angel Network, apart from Rajesh Sawhney of GSF accelerator.
Most recently, Paytm also acquired New Delhi-headquartered technology startup Cube26, which specializes in developing Android based apps that its customers integrate in their devices/apps as add-on features. Paytm will expect to do the same, as part of its plans to expand its offerings to its users. Cube26 has received funding from giants like Tiger Global and Indian ecommerce leader Flipkart.
Paytm has been aggressively expanding its offerings, especially in the ticketing and entertainment space. Paytm’s foray into the ticketing business has been strengthened through acquisitions it has made laterally. First, it spent around Rs 35 crores in taking over Insider.in, which was more into events ticketing, followed by the movie ticketing startup Ticket New, a Chennai based company.
Most recently, Paytm Entertainment received an infusion of funds from its parent company, One 97 Communications and the amount invested was $8.95 million (Rs 61 crore).