Other investors
in the company - SeedFund, Kanwal Rekhi's Inventus and Helion Ventures —
have also exited for what is said to be an enterprise value of Rs
600-700 crore, making it the biggest overseas strategic acquisition of
an Indian internet asset. TOI was the first to report, on June 15, that a
deal was likely. The companies did not disclose the deal amount.
Avendus Capital was the adviser to the deal.
Ibibo adds
redBus to its existing travel assets that include Goibibo.com, the
online travel aggregator, and TravelBoutiqueOnline, an online platform
that enables thousands of small and medium travel agents.
The
last big overseas acquisition was almost a decade ago, when Baazee.com
was bought by the world's largest marketplace Ebay in a $55 million
deal. Bazee co-founder Avnish Bajaj, who went on to start operations for
Silicon Valley VC firm Matrix Partners, told TOI that the redBus
acquisition should provide a fresh lease of life to the startup
ecosystem and bring in much needed liquidity. "Baazee in some ways was a
clone of Ebay but redBus has a lot of elements specific to India,
making it a good buy," he said.
redBus will remain an
independent entity and Sama and Padmaraju — both 32 years of age and who
together held 18.2% stake in redBus before the sale — will continue in
their roles: Sama as CEO and Padmaraju as the person responsible for
developing new products. "Charan is the Sergey Brin of redBus," Sama
told TOI.
Sama said what persuaded redBus to go with Naspers
was the group's culture. "They have acquired many internet companies and
have allowed them to function independently. I met several of the other
founders who have stayed on and are happy . Personally, I don't intend
to change my lifestyle so I didn't need more money," he said, pointing
out that the company was receiving buyout interests almost every six
months.
Sama first visualized the idea of an online bus
ticketing service when during the Diwali season in 2005 he failed to get
a bus ticket Bangalore,he was working for Texas Instruments, to his
hometown Hyderabad. Last year, business magazine Fast Company named
redBus among the world's 50 most innovative companies, alongside Apple,
Facebook and Google.
redBus now sells more than a million
tickets a month and has over 600 employees. The gross value of
transactions on redBus last year was about Rs 600 crore, up Rs 350 crore
in 2011-12 . But since the company works on a model of commission
revenue on successful transactions, the net revenues are much lower. In
2011-12 , the net revenue is said to have been Rs 33 crore. Sama said
the company turned profitable (on a net basis) in 2011-12.
Mahesh
Murthy, managing partner at Seedfund, the first investor in redBus,
said the acquisition reiterated the point that with a little bit of
money, it was possible to create a scalable business and a sound brand.
Ashish Kashyap, CEO of Ibibo Group, said the acquisition would make the group one of the largest in the online travel space.
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