Mumbai-headquartered travel-tech startup Goomo said it has acquired a B2B vehicle-rental marketplace WagonBee. Founded by Navneet Misra and Vikash Singh in 2016, Noida-based WagonBee is currently present in over 40 cities across India with nearly 8,000 itineraries and connections.The two companies did not disclose the size of the deal.
Goomo is an omni-channel travel-tech company that distributes travel products and services through online and offline channels. Commenting on the deal, Varun Gupta, CEO of Goomo, said, “The acquisition of WagonBee will help Goomo add road transportation services to its list of offerings, and further drive the brand’s promise of delivering end-to-end travel solutions to customers. Over and above this, the acquisition further reiterates our constant endeavour to build our overall tech competencies and develop the best technology-driven travel platform in the country.
Discussing the growth of the marketplace, Navneet Mishra, co-founder of WagonBee added, “The Indian car rental market is estimated to be around $15 million to $18 million and is expected to grow 17 to 20 percent year-on-year. WagonBee and Goomo are a perfect synergistic match given the similarities in our understanding of this fragmented market. We share a common vision of how this space can be organised better.”
The acquisition comes at a time of stiff competition in the B2B car rental marketplace. Several companies, including Ola, Uber and Carzonrent are cashing in on the corporate car rental opportunity, as the market is still largely fragmented across the country.
Last year, Goomo had raised $50 million from a Mauritius-based fund manager, Emerging India, to build its online platform, products, marketing, and establishing its offline partner network. Goomo has launched its services with bookings for flights and holidays, and trade fairs and will soon be expanding it to include hotels, trains, buses and visas online. In another similar move, Goomo had earlier acquired Zopky, a holiday marketplace startup to build its presence in the holiday packages space.
In the last one year since its inception in 2017, the company has set up its online platform, created new products, acquired customers and established a partner-network. The company also plans to invest considerably in technology to streamline and automate the online booking process, provide white label solutions to its offline partners to provide a better experience to its customers.
