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More Indians are now booking tickets and hotels online than ever before. Nothing can beat the comfort of being able to plan a trip from the comfort of your home. You can check out the prices and compare them to get the best out of the deal. A company that holds a major share in the Indian online travel industry is MakeMyTrip. Since 2000, MakeMyTrip is helping millions of Indians book railway tickets, airlines tickets, bus tickets, reserve hotel rooms, and buy holiday packages.
Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, MakeMyTrip is one of the most popular and dependable Indian travel company that helps the people of India avail of online travel services that includes airline tickets, domestic and international holiday packages, reservations of hotels, railways, and bus tickets.
If you want to know more about MakeMyTrip India, its Founders and Team, Growth, Startup Story, Mission and Vision, MakeMytrip number of employees, Products and Services, and more, then here's the MakeMyTrip success story.
MakeMyTrip - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | MakeMyTrip |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Gurugram |
| Founder | Deep Kalra, Keyur Joshi, Rajesh Magow, Sachin Bhatia (resigned as Co-founder and CMO) |
| Sector | Traveltech |
| Founded | 2000 |
| Total Funding | $748 mn (March 2022) |
| Revenue | $303.9 mn (FY22) |
| Parent Organization | MakeMyTrip (India) Pvt. Ltd. |
| Website | makemytrip.com |
About MakeMyTrip
MakeMyTrip - Product and Services
MakeMyTrip - Founders and Team
MakeMyTrip - Startup Story
MakeMyTrip - Vision and Mission
MakeMyTrip - Name, Tagline, and Logo
MakeMyTrip - Funding and Investors
MakeMyTrip - Business Model And Revenue Model
MakeMyTrip - Growth and Revenue
MakeMyTrip - Partnerships
MakeMyTrip - Investments
MakeMyTrip - Advertisements and Campaigns
MakeMyTrip - Awards
MakeMyTrip - Acquisitions and Mergers
MakeMyTrip - Startup Challenges
MakeMyTrip - Competitors
MakeMyTrip - Founder’s Advice
Ashwini
About MakeMyTrip
India’s leading online travel company MakeMyTrip was founded in the year 2000 by Deep Kalra, Keyur Joshi, Rajesh Magow, Sachin Bhatia. Headquartered in Gurugram (Haryana), the company provides online travel services that include flight tickets, domestic and international holiday packages, hotel reservations, rail and bus tickets.
Vidhi Punamiya
MakeMyTrip - Products and Services
MakeMyTrip Limited is an Indian online travel company founded in 2000. It’s services include air ticketing, hotel and alternative accommodations bookings, holiday planning and packaging, rail ticketing, inter-city bus ticketing, car hire, and ancillary travel requirements such as facilitating access to third-party travel insurance and visa processing.
The company’s culture of continuous innovation and “customer first” strategic focus in India’s travel market has allowed it to become the industry leader and positions it to accelerate the online presence of predominately offline hotels and accommodations.
MakeMyTrip works with a considerably large team of data scientists. It uses chatbots extensively—Gia for Goibibo and Myra for MakeMyTrip. These chatbots help solve a majority of the post-sales queries and will soon start dabbling in sales. MakeMyTrip also forayed into the corporate travel segment through MyBiz.
MakeMyTrip - Founders and Team
Deep Kalra
Deep Kalra is the founder of MakeMyTrip Limited, the holding company of India's leading travel brands: MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, and redBus.
MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra was born in Hyderabad and studied in Delhi and Ahmedabad. He obtained his bachelor's degree in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1990 and his MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad in 1992. Kalra joined ABN AMRO straight out of IIM Ahmedabad where he worked for three years before taking a year long break. He worked with AMF Bowling to set up bowling alleys in India before joining GE Capital in 1999 as VP of Business Development.
As the CEO of MakeMyTrip, Deep Kalra guided the company from its inception till its listing on NASDAQ in August 2010. From August 2013 to February 2020, Kalra functioned as the Group CEO. In February 2020, Deep Kalra stepped down from the post of Group CEO to resume responsibilities as executive chairman of the MakeMyTrip board, while co-founder and current CEO Rajesh Magow took charge as the Group CEO.
“We believe that separating the roles of Group CEO and Executive Chairman will allow us to focus more on long-term strategic opportunities within and outside India, while maintaining our market-leading position in our existing businesses,” MakeMyTrip owner Deep Kalra commented on his step-down.
Kalra also serves as the vice chairman of Internet and Mobile Association of India. He is one of the founders of Ashoka University and is a part of its governing body. He is also a founding member of "I am Gurgaon", an NGO.
Rajesh Magow
MakeMyTrip Co-founder Rajesh Magow is also the current Group CEO of the company. Magow is an alumnus of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He started his professional career as the Regional Head-ACE North of Aptech Ltd. He then became the CFO and Head of Financial Services at Ebookers, after which he became the Co-founder and CFO of MakeMyTrip. Magow has served numerous leadership positions in the company, which includes his role as the CFO, COO and Group CEO of the company.
Keyur Joshi
Keyur Joshi is another founder of MakeMyTrip, who is famous as the Co-founder, Chief Operating Officer (COO), and the Strategic Advisor, the roles that he is serving still in the company. The jumpstart of the online travel market in India can largely be attributed to Joshi.
Before MakeMyTrip, Joshi was involved with Around the World Travel (presently known as JustFares.com), and Tata Motors, where he handled the Market Research and Product Management departments. Keyur has obtained a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Gujarat University. This was again followed by an MBA degree from the City University of New York, New York. Joshi is also a certified pilot!
Apart from the resignation of Sachin Bhatia, who resigned as the Co-founder and CMO of the company, the founding team of MakeMyTrip is intact. Looking at the MakeMytrip number of employees, the company has last been known as a 3051+ members strong organization.
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MakeMyTrip - Subsidiaries
MakeMyTrip Subsidiaries are Ibibo, Easy to Book Holding B.V., ITC Group, Luxury Tours & Travel Pte Limited, Quest2travel.com India Pvt. Ltd., Hotel Travel Ltd., Travis Internet Private Limited, MakeMyTrip (India) Private Limited, and Makemytrip.com Inc.
MakeMyTrip - Startup Story
The startup story of MakeMyTrip can be traced back to the founder of the company, Deep Kalra and his job in the banking sector. Kalra was an experienced banker at ABN AMRO Bank, but the boring lifestyle and the constant itch of doing something new and unique always persuaded him to go off the track. So, he decided to leave the bank after working there for 3 years. However, it was tough for him to decide what to do then. Kalra wanted to take up challenges and win over them, which is why he joined AMF Bowling and started his new journey of bringing the company to India. However, it turned really difficult for him to raise funds for the bowling company and bring them to his country and this initiative of him failed, which led to him parting ways with AMF Bowling. Kalra wanted to do have a platform of his own, and run his own business now, which was just not happening then. Nevertheless, he again had to join another company, GE Capital, which he found fit instead of sitting back home. This job helped Deep realise the potential of the internet and instead, open many gates for him. Deep Kalra in this job role of his, learned that he could leverage the internet itself to run his new business. He was further reassured of the endless possibilities that the internet can bring in while trying to sell his wife's car online.
As soon as he learned the ropes of online businesses, Deep Kalra resigned from this company too and began to take steps to develop his own company. The next revelation of Deep Kalra was while researching the tourism sector when he discovered the people of India need to wait in long queues at ticket counters to secure their tickets. This helped him form the base of his business, where he decided to make ticket bookings easier online. While booking a holiday to Thailand, he realized that the internet could offer more competitive prices by cutting out the middleman. It was then he decided to form his own website, which was materialised in 2000, which he termed MakeMyTrip.
MakeMyTrip - Vision and Mission
MakeMyTrip's mission is to "provide customers a one-stop-shop for all their travel needs." It helps the users get optimum user experience across the entire travel journey, which includes "effective planning resources, superior booking experience across all channels, and in-journey 24x7 live customer support."
At GO-MMT, our vision is to make travel simple and fun for all, and our core values guide us in making this possible. These core values can be seen in the projects that we undertake, and the way in which we solve problems for our customers. They are a representation of OUR BEING & OUR DOING. Each member of the GO-MMT family is guided by them, each and every day, says the company website while stating its vision and values.
MakeMyTrip - Name, Tagline, and Logo
MakeMyTrip's tagline is "Dil toh roaming hai", which the company announced in April 2017.
MakeMyTrip - Funding and Investors
MakeMyTrip raised its first Series A funding of $10 million from Tiger Fund in 2005. It then raised another funding of $13 million in 2006. And then $15 million in Series C funding in 2007. In 2016, MakeMyTrip launched its IPO. It received $180 million. Later, it launched another IPO and raised $330 million. The second IPO happened in 2017 and the company has not seen any funding activity since then, until it received its Post-IPO debt round of funding in February 2021.
To sum up, MakeMyTrip has raised $748 million in funding over 6 rounds.
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 6, 2021 | Post-IPO Debt | $200 mn | - |
| May 3, 2017 | Post-IPO Equity | $330 mn | - |
| January 8, 2016 | Post-IPO Equity | $180 mn | Trip.com |
| October 8, 2007 | Series C | $15 mn | Tiger Fund, Helion Venture Partners, Sierra Ventures, SAIF Partners |
| December 14, 2006 | Series B | $13 mn | Helion Venture Partners, Sierra Ventures, SAIF Partners |
| May 1, 2005 | Series A | $10 mn | Tiger Fund, Helion Venture Partners, Sierra Ventures & SAIF Partners |
MakeMyTrip - Business Model and Revenue Model
MakeMyTrip lets users book air tickets, bus tickets, buy holiday packages, book hotel accommodations, and hire vehicles. Users can also access other travel-related services like visa processing and travel insurance that are provided by third-party vendors. All of these services are available through MakeMyTrip's app, website, or through MakeMyTrip-owned and franchisee-owned stores.
Besides this B2C model, MakeMyTrip has also introduced MyBiz to offer various corporate travel-related services. MyBiz lets businesses easily manage the travel and accommodation of its employees through various features such as a single dashboard, MyBiz wallet for central payment processing, and instant refunds to myBiz Wallet on cancellations.
MakeMyTrip’s revenues are currently split almost equally between ticketing and tours & hotel bookings. Hotels and packages, a higher margin category compared to airline ticketing, is the biggest revenue contributor and accounts for 56 percent of net revenue. The company is the market leader in domestic flight ticketing with a 24% market share.
MakeMyTrip - Growth and Revenue
Starting its journey at the start of the millennium MakeMyTrip has entirely transformed the ways of travel and bookings, and has made the whole process fast, easy, and hassle-free not only for its customers but for the whole country in general. Some of the major growth insights of the company are:
- MakeMyTrip has 14+ company-owned travel stores in over 14 cities
- It has 30+ franchisee-owned travel stores in over 28 cities
- The company has its counters in 4 major airports of the country
- It also has its international offices based in Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, New York, Singapore, Phuket
- MakeMyTrip boasts of an overwhelming collection with 50,000+ hotels and villas to book from
- In the post-pandemic world, the company also claims to help the users get 100% refund on their cancellations
MakeMyTrip Financials
MakeMyTrip focuses on technology and data to personalize the customer experience. The NASDAQ listed company saw net revenues from the hotel business surge by almost 140% to $81.2 million in the first quarter of FY 2017-18. For the quarter ending 30 September 2019, MakeMyTrip reported revenue worth $118 million. In the third quarter of FY 2019-2020, its revenue again increased from $118 million in Q2 to $146.9 million. Thus, the company's revenue increased by 15.9% YOY to $146.9 million from $124.8 million in Quarter 3 of FY 2018-2019.
MakeMyTrip's losses have come down by 50% till Q3 of FY 2019-2020 as compared to Q3 of FY 2018-2019.
“We can turn profitable, but that will hit our growth. At this stage of the market, you cannot afford to go slow.”- Deep Kalra.
The performance of MakeMyTrip further continued witnessing a steady decline since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. The company's revenues declined by almost 68% to stand at $163 million in FY21, which was reported to be $511 million in the previous fiscal.
Looking at the revenues of MakeMyTrip in FY21 and comparing the same with that of the previous fiscal, we discover that the popular travel company has noticed a sharp decline in all of its revenue verticals including Air Ticketing, Bus Ticketing, Hotels and Packages, and Others. This happened after the company saw a minor revival from the slackening due to the COVID-19 induced lockdowns.
The company has significantly improved on its losses in FY21 though, which decreased from $447.5 million (FY20) to $56 million during FY21.
To trim the losses and expenses, the company went to tremendous cost-cutting measures, which included cutting down on the marketing and sales promotion of the company by trimming down the sales promotion spends and cancelling all other events associated with the same like brand building initiatives and others. This helped the company, which earned zero revenues between April and June 2020, to limit its losses. The FY21 expenses of MakeMyTrip were limited on all the 4 verticals - Service cost, Personnel expenses, Marketing and sales promotion expenses, and Other Operating expenses. However, with the reports of FY22, MakeMyTrip witnessed quite a few highs in its scale. The gross bookings
MakeMyTrip Revenue
MakeMyTrip revenue soared from $163.4 mn in FY21 to become $303.9 mn in FY22. The pandemic receded giving way to a much-needed recovery of the travel and tourism sector and the players operating in the same. The revenue MakeMyTrip earned from the air-ticketing business grew by 55.6% to be $88.7 mn in FY22, whereas the revenue from hotel and packages grew by 131.4% to be $157.3 mn.
The adjusted loss of MakeMyTrip, which was recorded at $18 mn in FY21 became adjusted operating profit for the company, which rose to $23.2 mn in FY22.
MakeMyTrip - Partnerships
MakeMyTrip, in its 20+ years-long journey, has witnessed numerous partnerships with a whole lot of brands. Here's a glimpse into some of the most important collaborations that MakeMyTrip witnessed in recent years:
- The Indian travel company led by Rajesh Magow is all set to partner with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, as per the reports dated November 22, 2021. With this partnership, the popular travel and tourism company will ensure the promotion of regional air connectivity via the UDAN scheme. The company will be powering the UDAN flights on the AIRSewa portal and will market the same on its platform as well in order to promote its products and increase visibility and product discovery.
- MakeMyTrip has partnered with IndiGo to launch exclusive charter flights between Mumbai and Phuket in Thailand. The announcement came in on November 10, 2021, where MakeMyTrip, as part of the deal, will ensure end-to-end service assistance including airport transfers, early check-in and check-out, certificate of entry assistance, premium properties, and more.
- The company entered into a strategic partnership with AmazonPay to offer all-inclusive travel services to Amazon customers that will be enabled by MakeMyTrip and Redbus. This partnership was announced on November 1, 2021.
- The Indian travel major collaborated with Hopper, a leading AI-based travel booking app on October 14, 2021, which was aimed to help the customers save money with personalised and flexible bookings.
MakeMyTrip - Investments
MakeMyTrip has made 7 investments to date. Here's all of them below:
| Date | Name of the Company | Investment Round | Lead Investor |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 29, 2020 | ibibo Group | Venture Round | Yes |
| September 24, 2019 | PasajeBus.com | Series A | Yes |
| July 26, 2018 | Bitla Software Pvt. Ltd. | Venture Round | Yes |
| September 6, 2017 | GoFro | Series B | Yes |
| July 20, 2015 | HolidayIQ | Series B | Yes |
| June 25, 2015 | Inspirock | Seed Round | - |
| August 11, 2011 | ixigo | Series A | - |
MakeMyTrip - Advertisements and Campaigns
Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt are the brand ambassadors of the MakeMyTrip company, whom the company roped in on February 17, 2016.
The company always focuses on creativity and unique content and aims to market its brand well across all the available platforms. The latest campaign of MakeMyTrip, titled "JoHogaWowHoga", stars its brand ambassadors and focuses on making people's trips smoother and easier than ever with easy cancellations that come with 100% refunds on trips and tickets and other booking charges. This makes the MakeMyTrip users book their trips confidently and without worries.
MakeMyTrip - Awards
The list of accolades received by the company is quite long. Here are some of them:
- Best Travel Innovator - Travel Distribution World Asia Awards (2012).
- Singapore Airlines - Top agents award (2010-2011) ; Top Passenger Agent (2007-08).
- Malaysia airlines - Top Agent Award (2007) ; Top agent award (2009) ; Top agent award (2010).
- Cathay Pacific - Outstanding performance in (2009) ; Outstanding Performance (2007).
- Air Canada - Outstanding Performance (2008).
- Air Mauritius - All India Top Ten Agent/Top North India Sales Award (2007-08); All India Top Ten Agent/Top North India Sales Award (2006-07).
- British Airways - Outstanding Revenue Contribution (2007-08).
- Lufthansa - Outstanding Performance (2006-07).
- Indian Airlines - Achieving Highest Domestic Passenger Sales (2006-07).
- Kingfisher Airlines - Outstanding Performance (2006-07).
- Jet Airways - Award of Excellence (2005-06).
- Air India - Outstanding Contribution to Passenger Sales (2005-06).
Vidhi Punamiya
MakeMyTrip - Acquisitions and Mergers
MakeMyTrip made 5 acquisitions till date. The last MakeMyTrip acquisition was of Quest2Travel, which came in May 2019.
The MakeMyTrip fintech arm TripMoney has acquired BookMyForex, an online foreign exchange service provider of India on April 5, 2022 through the acquisition of the majority stakes in the company.
Here's a look at the list of the companies that MakeMyTrip has acquired:
| Company Acquired | Date of Acquisition | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Quest2Travel | May 1, 2019 | - |
| ibibo Group | October 18, 2016 | $720 mn |
| Mygola | April 23, 2015 | - |
| Easytobook.com | February 6, 2014 | $5 mn |
| HotelTravel.com | November 19, 2012 | $25 mn |
Some other investments and acquisitions that MakeMyTrip made during its journey till now are:
- In August 2011, MakeMyTrip (MMT) along with private equity firm Saif Partners acquired majority stakes in Travenues Technology Private Limited, which owns Ixigo.com. In November 2011, MMT invested in 'My Guest House Accommodation', a budget lodging and hotel operator.
- In September 2014, the company instituted a $15 million innovation fund to support early-stage companies in the travel space. It also acquired MyGola, a travel planning website, in April 2015. The acquisition was done through the innovation fund and as part of the acquisition, all employees of MyGola were absorbed into the MakeMyTrip team.
- In June 2015, MakeMyTrip acquired an 18% stake in travel planning startup Inspirock. In July 2015, it invested in travel information and hotel review portal HolidayIQ to pick up approximately 30% stake in the latter. In the same month, it also invested $5 million in BonaVita Technologies, a startup which plans to utilize the funds to build innovative products in the travel industry.
- In 2016, MakeMyTrip Ltd agreed to buy Ibibo Group’s travel business in India in an all-stock deal, thereby helping the country witness one of the biggest acquisitions in its online travel space. MakeMyTrip's shareholders have owned 60% stakes while Ibibo Group's shareholders have owned 40% stakes after the merger was completed.
MakeMyTrip - Startup Challenges
Speaking about the biggest challenge faced, Kalra quoted,
“The meltdown of dotcom, the exit of venture capital from India, and the 9/11 attacks. By mid-2001, MakeMyTrip were hit by this triple whammy. The next couple of years were the toughest — there were no investors in sight and the company had to shrink the team. But those tough times helped bind the team together. It’s been an incredible journey and the team are thrilled for the possibilities that lie ahead.”
MakeMyTrip - Competitors
The main competitors of MakeMyTrip are:
- Yatra
- Booking.com
- Cleartrip
- Expedia
- Travelguru
- Easemytrip
- OYO
Mandagiri Praveen Kumar Reddy
MakeMyTrip - Founder’s Advice
“I think we are in a really good space where travel is really booming and most of it is moving online. What's exciting is how do we capture the mind set of this Indian who has moved online recently and who is keen to travel, and we want to be the brand that they trust instinctively and take care of them. And the vision I’ve always had is to get all our customers to become our brand ambassadors. And we keep moving in that direction and it's more important to have people come back to you unaided. And that is what we are excited about,” Kalra shares.
FAQs
What is MakeMyTrip?
MakeMyTrip is an online travel company founded by Deep Kalra, Keyur Joshi, and Sachin Bhatia in 2000, who were later joined by Rajesh Magow. The company is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana and offers online travel services including domestic and international holiday packages, hotel reservations, rail, bus and flight tickets.
Who is MakeMyTrip founder/owner?
Rajesh Magow is the Co-founder and Group CEO of MakeMyTrip. Rajesh joined Deep Kalra, Keyur Joshi and Sachin Bhatia, the founders of MakeMyTrip, in 2006. If you are looking about the owner of MakeMyTrip, then the single largest shareholder of the company's shares is Naspers and Tencent.
What are the names of MakeMyTrip subsidiaries?
MakeMyTrip Subsidiaries are Ibibo, Easy to Book Holding B.V., ITC Group, Luxury Tours & Travel Pte Limited, Quest2travel.com India Pvt. Ltd., Hotel Travel Ltd., Travis Internet Private Limited, MakeMyTrip (India) Private Limited, and Makemytrip.com Inc.
Which is MakeMyTrip origin country?
MakeMyTrip Limited is an Indian online travel company founded in 2000.
What is the total funding amount raised by MakeMyTrip?
Till date (2020), MakeMyTrip raised funding worth $748 million over 6 rounds.
How much is MakeMyTrip's valuation?
MakeMyTrip was last valued at $2.69 billion, in 2019.
