Travel search service ixigo has acquired Square Hoot Hikes, parent of cabs aggregation service Rutogo, with terms of the deal undisclosed.
Through the acquisition ixigo says it will ramp up its cabs app by "building a marketplace for inter-city taxi owners and vendors."
ixigo recently claimed an industry first with the launch of ixigo cabs, a metasearch app for cabs and the company says it is the fastest growing app in its portfolio.
ixigo cofounder and chief executive Aloke Bajpai says:
"This acquisition fits well with our overall strategy of providing comprehensive choice across intra-city and inter-city taxi booking options. We will be launching outstation taxis in the coming weeks, and will also be opening up the cabs marketplace and partner with other booking apps in the inter-city taxis space shortly."
The Rutogo team now joins ixigo and cofounder Venus Dhuria points to the app-based taxi booking market being worth an estimated $9 billion.
He adds that alongside ixigo, it wants to be the cabs search market leader in India.
The plan is for the Rutogo brand to remain alongside ixigo.
This is ixigo's second acquisition in the past month after it bought The Indian Backpacker, calling it an "acqui-hire."
In June, the travel search specialist announced it was partnering with an selling a stake to smartphone manufacturer Micromax with a plan to put travel services into a range of Android handsets 'natively.'
A statement from ixigo says the move "will help ixigo go from 6.5 million monthly active users to over 30 million...by the end of 2016."
Further reading:
Ixigo joins in as taxis and and ride-sharing take hold in India