MakeMyTrip Acquires Happay in Move to Strengthen Corporate Travel Biz

18.11.2024 - 13:37 / skift.com / Peden Doma Bhutia / Rajesh Magow

Online travel company MakeMyTrip on Monday announced its acquisition of expense management platform Happay from Indian fintech company CRED. The deal would allow MakeMyTrip to deepen its foothold in the expanding corporate travel market.

Happay’s team would “continue to seamlessly support the existing client base while working in close partnership with MakeMyTrip’s corporate travel services team,” MakeMyTrip said in a statement.

MakeMyTrip did not disclose the financial terms; Cred acquired Happay in a $180 million deal in 2021.

Happay was founded in 2012 and provides travel and expense management software for corporates. In May 2023, the company underwent a restructuring that led to an almost 35% reduction in its workforce.

Happay recently expanded its offerings by launching a B2B payments solution on Bharat Connect, developed in collaboration with the National Payments Corporation of India, an Indian public sector company that operates retail payments and settlement systems in the country.

MakeMyTrip has been focusing in the Indian corporate travel ecosystem, and its corporate offerings, myBiz and Quest2Travel, have demonstrated strong growth in recent years.

“The acquisition of Happay’s brand and expense management platform is a natural next step in our strategy to lead this space,” said Rajesh Magow, co-founder and Group CEO of MakeMyTrip.

Happay brings over 900 corporate clients. MakeMyTrip already serves over 59,000 SME clients through myBiz and 462 large corporates via Quest2Travel.

Magow told Skift that limited deployment of technology in the corporate segment had kept MakeMyTrip from focusing on it earlier.

“We always felt there was less innovation in this space and we should wait for our opportunity,” he had said.

India’s business travel market has been rebounding strongly post-pandemic. India is the ninth-largest market globally for business travel expenditure and the fourth-largest in the Asia Pacific region.

The Global Business Travel Association projects India’s corporate travel spending to reach $38 billion this year with projected full recovery to pre-2019 spending levels by 2025.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a critical driver of corporate travel, account for 30% of this market, according to Deloitte India.

Speaking at the Skift India Podcast recently, Avinash Chandani, partner at Deloitte India, said initiatives like “Make in India” and export incentives are fueling increased demand for SME travel.

India’s corporate travel market is currently valued at $10.6 billion, accounting for 20% of the country’s overall travel market. Improved infrastructure and economic growth are expected to drive its growth to $20 billion by 2030.

MakeMyTrip isn’t alone in chasing growth in