Thursday, 31 January 2019

Paytm buys Nightstay

Digital payment company Paytm has launched domestic hotel bookings on its platform and has acquired last-minute hotel bookings app Nightstay to expand its travel business. The company will invest upwards of Rs 500 crore for scaling the hotel booking business and expanding its portfolio.
Nightstay Travels Pvt. Ltd was founded in 2015. It procures unsold inventory from hotel owners at a discount and offers the rooms under three categories – boutique, business class and luxury class hotels. It operates on dynamic pricing for partner hotels with inventory being made available for booking every morning. Users can book their stay for up to three days at one go and avail the last-minute deal. It works with hotels in 12 cities across the country.

Paytm aims to leverage Nightstay to expand its portfolio in this vertical. Nightstay had raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round led by the Indian Angel Network and LetsVenture in May 2017. In August 2015, it had raised $500,000 in a seed round from Bedrock Venture Management Pvt. Ltd.

Paytm Travel, started in 2014, claims to sell over 60 million tickets a year, and offers rail and bus tickets, and flight bookings. Earlier this year, Paytm Travel also started offering foreign exchange bookings for international travellers. The company said it has partnered with over 5,000 hotels across the budget, luxury and business segments. Its partner hotels include Zuri, Sarovar, Treebo, Vresorts, Sterling, Ginger and Bloomrooms.

No comments: