There’s some confusion. Or shall we say competition? News reported first by VC Circle this morning said that Expedia has bought a majority stake in Mumbai-based travel services portal TravelGuru. The report puts the size of the deal at $17 million and additionally, Expedia reserves the right to up its stake in TravelGuru in future. Simple enough so far. But just I am about to compose my thoughts on how the ongoing consolidation in the online travel space has moved to the next level, comes this denial of sorts on the deal from TravelGuru CEO Ashwin Damera at Medianama.
Anyway, I did some asking around within the venture capital community and I’m inclined to believe both reports are right and wrong. Some deal seems to have been initiated but the terms, it appears, are yet to be finalized. TravelGuru is the smallest in terms of revenues among leading online travel services firms — the unconfirmed estimate is $2 million. It trails Makemytrip, Yatra and Cleartrip, necessarily in that order. For a larger perspective on the online travel business and its current state of affairs, read this Outlook Business report.
