Gomalon acquires Bookmyspa

Two year old spa and salon booking portal, Bookmyspa has been acquired by Gomalon, a startup that lists wellness services in Bengaluru, in an equity deal of about Rs 12 Crore. The buyout has made Gomalon the largest appointment booking platform in Bengaluru with over 2,000 vendors. The two entities will be merged after the deal is closed.

Gomalon was founded in February as a discovery and booking platform for wellness centres. It is currently operational in Bangalore where it lists over 270 services across 12 categories. Gomalon will expand to metros in next 12 months.  The two year old Bookmyspa.in has operations in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The startup also had plans to launch in Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai.

The combined entity would compete with the likes of BeautyBooked, Ziffi, Vyomo, Purplle, ManageMySpa and other online ventures. India’s beauty and wellness industry has seen a lot of investor action. India B&W sector is to be worth Rs 1 Lakh Crore this year. Several online players that facilitate listings, discovery and booking of wellness services have raised external capital.

Bengaluru based Vyomo Pvt. Ltd, which runs a beauty and wellness platform had raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding led by TaxiForSure in June. In January, Mumbai based Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd; the company behind Purplle.com secured an undisclosed amount in Series A funding from early to growth stage VC firm IvyCap Ventures.

Olacabs to acquire TaxiForSure

Taxi aggregators are readying themselves to take on the global giant Uber, once the regulatory issues are cleared in India. Olacabs, the Indian startup supported by Japan Softbank’s is buying its rival TaxiForSure, signaling consolidation in the nascent taxi app market. Key investors in TaxiForSure include Accel partners and Qualcomm.

The deal, which is estimated to be worth around $200-250 Million, will be second largest deal in the customer internet space after Flipkart $370 Million acquisition of Myntra. It will make Olacabs the leader in taxi aggregator business in India valued at $2 Billion. Ola is likely to pay cash and also offer stock to acquire TaxiForSure. Apart from taking on the $40 billion Uber, the move is also aimed at lowering the cost.

Globally too taxi aggregators are in talks to form an international alliance against Uber, potentially linking up regional players including Olacabs, Singapore Grab Taxi, and San Francisco based Flywheel. Though, none of the Indian Taxi aggregator companies have started making profit yet, TaxiForSure, run by Bangalore based Senrendipity Infolabs, seems to be in urgent need for financial support.

Olacabs, cofounded by IIT Bombay alumnus Bhavish Aggarwal and his college mate Ankit Bhati, received $210 million in funding led by Japanese communications conglomerate Softbank in October. TaxiForSure had snagged $30 Million from Accel and Qualcomm, but Olacabs fundraising demonstrated that momentum had swung its way. IIM Ahmedabad graduates Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna found TaxiForSure.