VCCircle

Exclusive: Mumbai Angels, an independent group of angel investors based in the city, has invested in an unnamed airline ticketing company, which is expected to launch a distressed inventory sales engine very soon. This will be the fourth investment of Mumbai Angels in the last six months.

The group had earlier invested in companies like mKhoj, a mobile search firm, Madhouse.in, a DVD rental company (which it exited recently when the company was sold to Seventymm.com), and NetElixir, a US-based pay-per-click search marketing firm.

Sources close to Mumbai Angels told VC Circle that it's an existing travel portal, but will be soon converting itself into an online ticketing company that sells unsold, last minute inventory (or distressed inventory). Probably none of the travel portals offers such a service as of now. Indiatimes.com has an auction system, but it still does not offer a complete bouquet of distressed inventory web fares. Competition can come from airline websites, though. For instance, the state-owned domestic carrier Indian recently launched spot fares for executive class. Also, now you can book tickets up to two hours before departure on Indian.

But the idea of aggregating such last minute deals is a good thing.

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