Paytm is looking to enter the hospitality industry by acquiring the last minute hotel booking app, NightStay, for ₹136 crore ($20 million) as reported by The Times of India. Paytm will also be looking to onboard the complete team of NightStay.
NightStay was started by Nasr Khan and Deepak Negi with the launch of the app in March 2015. NightStay raised $500K in funding from BedRock Ventures and Shailesh Vikram Singh, a partner at SeedFund and angel investor Rajesh Sawhney of GSF in August 2015.
The idea behind NightStay is that it offers the unsold inventory of the hotels at lower costs at the last minute, thereby making the customers as well as the hotels happy. They have tried to carve out their niche in the market by targetting a set of customers. This will not only help maintain their brand identity by providing instant hotel booking but also increase the footfall in the hotels with unsold inventories. NightStay is already available in major cities across India.
Paytm was founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma as an online recharge platform, it has since come a long way and established itself in many different industrial sectors. Paytm is the largest reseller of train tickets for IRCTC, second largest in bus ticket booking and among the top three when it comes to booking flight tickets.
Paytm has acquired many different startups in the past couple of years, thereby expanding its business. Some of the startups bought by Paytm include Nearbuy, Little, Cube26, and m’loyal.
It is emerging as a major player in the hospitality and travel industry but it needs to tread with caution if it needs to keep its position secure. As of last year, Paytm has been operating in a loss and the gap continues to grow. It is to be seen how this acquisition helps Paytm in its plan to foray into the hospitality industry.