Ixigo Acquires Inter-City Cabs Aggregator Rutogo

Gurgaon-based mobile travel search marketplace Ixigo announced that it has completed the acquisition of Delhi-based Square Hoot Hikes Pvt Ltd, the parent company of Rutogo, an inter-city cabs aggregator for an undisclosed amount.

The Rutogo team will be joining Ixigo to scale its fast-growing cabs app by building a marketplace for inter-city taxi owners and vendors, the company said in a news statement.

Launched earlier this year, the Ixigo cabs app allows travellers to search across app-based taxi providers such as Ola, Uber and Easycabs and book them in one click. The company claimed that its app has over 100,000 downloads as of date, while Rutogo's app has less than 5,000 installs.

Aloke Bajpai, Co-Founder and CEO, Ixigo said that his firm now had the most most comprehensive transportation search in India, covering flights, trains, buses and cabs. "Rutogo had made considerable progress in building a marketplace with nearly 100 taxi vendors across India, and that Ixigo's app will be launching outstation taxis in the coming weeks." he said.

Venus Dhuria, Co-Founder, Rutogo, said that he was confident of building India's leading cabs search marketplace. "The market potential for app-based taxi booking is estimated to be worth $9 billion, and inter-city cab bookings will form a majority of that, given the higher value of such transactions." he said.

Ixigo had acquired budget travel community platform Indianbackpacker.com earlier this month, following an investment round from smartphone handset maker Micromax Informatics in June 2015. The firm had also launched a PNR prediction feature for train travelers in June.