Paytm after failing in the business of hotel booking has again entered in the business this time with new set of strategy. The company has been acquiring hotel booking platform, Night stay. Even after having to shut down its hotel vertical earlier this year, Paytm has not given up on the segment.
The deal is a mix of cash and equity worth $20 million. However, the acquisition amount seems mind-boggling for the little known three years old company.
NightStay offers unsold hotel rooms to consumers with steep discounts in real time, across a dozen cities including Delhi (NCR), Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune and Chandigarh amongst others.
So far, the company had raised funds in the range of $1.2 to 1.5 million (according to sources) in two rounds.
Earlier this year Paytm shut down its hotel vertical. However, after acquiring NightStay, the Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company is likely to resume the hotel booking feature. As of now, it’s not clear whether Paytm would follow the NighStay model or a generic hotel aggregation model for its second coming in the segment.
Since Paytm has entered the hotel booking business for the second time, it would be interesting to see how it chooses the right model and competes with the likes of MakeMyTrip, Yatra, Cleartrip, and others.
