Indian travel search engine Ixigo.com has completed its $15 million Series B round after months of negotiation and rumour, with Sequoia Capital and Fosun Kinzon backing the raise.
The participation of Fosun Kinzon, which is part of Chinese conglomerate Fosun, is of note as it brings more Chinese money into the Indian travel market. Ctrip's investment in MakeMyTrip started the trend, and when MakeMyTrip merged with Ibibo Group, Chinese internet giant Tencent entered the fray via its stake in Ibibo.
Ixigo plans to use the cash for the product development, expansion and marketing. Earlier this year it bought mobile content sharing app Reach for an undisclosed sum.
Elsewhere, India's mobile payments and e-commerce giant Paytm continues to build its travel offer, signing a partnership deal with booking.com. Paytm has some 200 million users in India and the tie-up with booking.com is a big step in its plans to become part of India's travel landscape. It also gives booking.com another route to market in India.
Paytm says that in January its annualized total sales or GMV broke through the $500 million barrier and that has earmarked rs300 crore - some $46 million - to build its travel presence.
And again, there is a Chinese component to this - Paytm backers include Alibaba.