SpiceJet recently acqui-hired the team and technology of Travenues, a subsidiary of Ixigo which is India’s leading AI-based travel app. With this deal, the amount of which was not disclosed, SpiceJet aims to absorb the technology team and airline commerce platform.
Last year, Travenues had signed its first technology partnership with SpiceJet for the digital transformation of its consumer-facing experiences, which have now been expanded to other applications. The SpiceJet team firmly believes that the acqui-hire will help SpiceJet strengthen its e-commerce platforms and infuse tech in other applications such as mobile apps, UX, engagement, cross-selling, payments, ancillaries, personalisation and more.
“This acqui-hire will help SpiceJet strengthen its e-commerce platforms as we continue to innovate across multiple technology areas and achieve our vision of being the worldwide leader in aviation technology,” said Ashish Vikram, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, SpiceJet.
How Will Travenues Facilitate Deep Tech To SpiceJet
Bengaluru-based Travenues is an airline technology company that has built several innovative products for airline eCommerce. Founded in 2019, the team has extensive experience across GDS, OTA and meta-search business to improve passenger customer experience. It offers a comprehensive travel-tech optimised airline commerce and ancillary sales platform to airlines that allows for extensive customisation and state-of-the-art personalisation.
Powering the travel industry through deep technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, it applies cutting edge technology to provide seamless solutions to a wide range of travel-tech problems. Some of the solutions that it offers are:
- AI/ML-based travel assist, which is a travel assistance bot that can help with consumer support and deeply integrated booking options
- Highly configurable micro engagement platform capable of reaching the right traveller with the right deal at the right time
The team believes that airlines still face the same problems that they faced a decade ago. Infusing technology can enable them at various levels, giving travellers the best experience.
With this deal, Spicejet aims to use the technology-driven team to help them grow in various domains such as eCommerce, offering customisation and more. It will use the team and full-stack commerce suite that Travenues has built and take innovations to the next level. It will help them focus on B2C business while scaling up B2B offerings though Travenues. It also aims to bring deep-tech integrations to help airlines with user experience on engagement, segmentation, targeting, cross-selling, payments, and customer service.
“We are happy that we were able to incubate a startup and build a next-generation platform with a motivated tightly-knit team that can truly disrupt airline direct sales and airline commerce. The possibilities this unfolds for SpiceJet are endless!, said Rajnish Kumar, Co-founder & CTO, ixigo”
ixigo Shares Its Ambition To Use Deep Tech With Travenues
ixigo has been deeply invested in using AI and predictive analytics to offer a conducive platform to travellers. In an interaction with Analytics India Magazine, Rajnish had said that by using machine learning they were able to predict a lot of travel-related aspects for the user, making the booking experience hassle-free. They also use it to predict seat confirmation, seat availability, flight fares, train delays and much more using millions of data points that they capture from apps. Using deep tech, it evolved from being a metasearch engine to travel marketplace. With Travenues, Ixigo shares a similar ideology and aims to transform the way travel and airlines work.
