It’s official: ibiboGroup acquires Redbus; CEO Sama to stay on

After reports that ibiboGroup is in talks with Redbus for a Rs 800 crore acquisition, ibibo’s India CEO and founder Ashish Kashyap has confirmed the deal to TechCrunch.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the acquisition price is said to be in the range of $135 million (approx Rs 800 crore), just like when we last reported the development. ibiboGroup is co-owned by South African media house Naspers and Chinese Internet company Tencent.

Kashyap also said that that the company will keep Redbus independent from the other OTA businesses it already owns in India. ibibo’s existing travel portfolio includes travel aggregator Goibibo.com and B2B travel agency TravelBoutiqueOnline. When asked whether Phanindra Sama, the co-founder and CEO of Redbus will continue to operate in his current capacity, Kashyap said, “Yes. Absolutely. He is going to continue to participate with me and continue his role as the CEO of Redbus.”

ibibo comes onboard

The deal will bolster the existing business of ibibo in India and even though Goibibo.com currently takes bus bookings, the Redbus inventory and bus operator faith in the service will increase the efficacy of its bookings. Not to mention the acquisition will bring in more users to the ibibo platforms.

The acquisition represents one of the largest deals for an Indian Internet company. Founded by BITS Pilani alumni Sama, Sudhakar Pasupunuri and Charan Padmaraju, RedBus has reached great heights in just seven years and is India's largest bus ticketing platform. It issues an average of 10 million tickets with gross sales nearing $200 million annually. Pilani Soft Labs is the holding company of Redbus and the figure of $135 million is seen as a great exit for the company. In three separate rounds, the company raised $10 million between 2007 and 2011 from Seedfund, Inventus Capital Partners and Helion Venture Partners.