Bangalore-based Leisure & Lifestyle Information Services, which owns the Indian travel community HolidayIQ.com, is merging with Singapore based online travel meta-search engine Wego Pte.
The merged entity has also announced the completion of Series B funding by New York-based growth capital fund Tiger Global Management with participation from existing investor News Digital Media, an Australian digital arm of News Limited. Wego.com received its first round of funding from News Corp owned News Digital Media.
Existing investors including Accel Partners exited HolidayIQ this month, according to sources. HolidayIQ was first funded by a group of angel investors led by D S Puri, co-founder of HCL group and received its first round of institutional funding from Accel Partners India in 2006. BCCL's Private Treaties arm also picked up a 17% stake in the company in April 2007.
The original promoters - the founders Hari Nair and Vinu Krishnan - will continue to retain their stake, and post the merger, there will be no change in management of HolidayIQ. Nair, a former partner of KPMG India, and Krishnan founded HolidayIQ in 2004. Wego.com is a five-year-old site. Wego crawls online ticketing sites for flights, hotels and packages along with travel deals and travel research from 150+ travel websites.
In June, Tiger Global Management invested in Indian online books retailer Flipkart and has backed companies such as local search firm Just Dial and coaching institute T.I.M.E here.
