DRMumbai: India’s leading e-commerce digital wallet company Paytm is all set to acquire Delhi-based last-minute hotel booking platform NightStay for around $20 million, signalling the former’s foray into the hospitality space. It’s a cash-plus-equity deal. Paytm will on-board the entire Night-Stay team.
New Delhi-based NightStay is a members-only mobile app, offering attractive prices on luxury hotels in 12 cities, including Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bengaluru. Founded by Nasr Khan and Deepak Negi in 2015, the startup curates unsold inventory across business and luxury hotels and offers a concession rate for customers.
NightStay is learnt to have raised around $10 million in funding. It initially raised a seed round of $500,000 from Bedrock Venture Management, and Rajesh Sawhney, Founder of GSF Accelerator, along with a follow-on undisclosed round from Lets Venture and Indian Angel Network.
Paytm is emerging as a significant player in the travel and hospitality space. The mobile wallet company acquired Chennai-based online ticketing platform TicketNew, which reports said was a $30-40 million deal. Paytm sold over 38 million tickets in 2017-18, and plans to more than double its ticketing volumes in the current financial year.
In less than two years of launching the ticketing service, it has emerged as IRCTC’s largest reseller of train tickets, second-largest player for bus tickets and among the top-three players in flights.
