Paytm Acquires NightStay For $20 Million; Are They Serious About Hotel Bookings Now?

This is a move which clearly showcases Paytm’s seriousness about tourism space.

For $20 million or Rs 136 crore, Paytm has acquired NightStay, which is an app for hotel bookings.

Why NightStay was chosen by Paytm, and what are their plans now?

Read on to know more!

Paytm Acquires NightStay For $20 Mn

NightStay Travels Pvt. Ltd, which is operating NightStay app, has been acquired by Paytm for $20 million or Rs 136 crore.

Paytm hasn’t yet confirmed or denied this news, but NightStay’s co-founder Nasr Khan has confirmed the development.

NightStay is a marketplace, where in anyone can find hotel rooms across 12 cities.

Co-founders of NightStay are based out of New Delhi. Besides Nasr Khan, Deepak Negi is the other co-founder of NightStay.

Using NightStay, you can book hotels in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Goa, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Pune, Agra and Chandigarh.

What Makes NightStay Special?

NightStay targets a very niche subset of hotel booking industry: Unsold inventory, being offered at low cost in the last minute.

It seems NightStay has partnered with major hotels, which also includes 5-star properties, and have made an arrangement to rent their unsold properties at lower costs.

Being a member only platform, NightStay can be assured of bookings at the last moment, which hotels cannot foresee.

In August 2015, NightStay raised $500,000 in seed funding from Vivek Bihani of Bedrock Venture Management Pvt. Ltd, GSF founder Rajesh Sawhney and Shailesh Vikram Singh, who was then executive director at SeedFund.

In May last year, Indian Angel Network and LetsVenture infused an undisclosed amount into NightStay, as part of Series-A funding.

Paytm’s Serious Plans About Tourism Industry

In the last 12 months or so, Paytm has made it clear that they want a greater pie in the lucrative yet competitive travel and hospitality space.

And, they had started their journey of dominating travel domain way back in 2016, when they partnered with IRCTC. Right now, Paytm is IRCTC’s largest reseller of train tickets, and second largest reseller for bus tickets.

In February this year, Paytm announced that they have sold 52 million tickets in 2017, and in May this year, they declared 3.8 crore tickets have been sold in the first half of 2018, and Rs 5000 crore would be spent by them for expanding their ticketing business.

Recently, Paytm acquired Chennai-based online ticketing platform TicketNew, a deal which was said to be in the range of $30-40 million.

In the Hotel Rooms space, Paytm had earlier partnered with RoomsTonite, and offered some exclusive deals via their app. But now, RoomsTonite has shut down their operations, and there are no hotel room booking option available on Paytm.

With the acquisition of NightStay, we can expect new offers, new promotional schemes, and a new beginning for Paym in this niche space.