 "Deep Kalra, Founder & group CEO, MakeMyTrip")
Deep Kalra, the man behind online travel company MakeMyTrip, does not just create happiness for holiday goers. Kalra, 47, has ensured a delightful trip for his investors too, which include marquee names like SAIF Partners and T Rowe Price.
Back in August 2010, when the company listed on Nasdaq, its share price surged 80 per cent over the listing price. The gains allowed some investors to sell part of their stakes. Early this week, MakeMyTrip gave investors another reason to cheer by announcing acquisition of main rival ibibo. The company's stock surged more than 50 per cent upon the announcement, creating a market cap of $1.2 billion (approximately). This is the second major development in the company this calendar year. In January, it raised an investment of $180 million from Chinese travel major Ctrip to grow the high-margin hotel booking business.
MakeMyTrip was not the first venture set up by Kalra. After spending three years with ABN Amro Bank, his first job after doing his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad in the early '90s. Having spent three years at the bank, he bought a bowling company, AMF Bowling, and turned an entrepreneur. That did not click and Kalra returned to a corporate life after four years. The second job was at GE Money. This was where he first learnt to use the internet and also realised the limitless potential that it offered.
Kalra founded MakeMyTrip in 2000 in the US to cater to the US-India travel market. Five years later, the India launch happened. Kalra, now the chairman and group CEO, steers a company that has become synonymous with travel and holidays in the minds of the internet savvy Indians.
With the acquisition of ibibo, MakeMyTrip has moved miles ahead of competitors like Yatra and Cleartrip. The combined entity of MakeMyTrip and ibibo make up nearly half of the online hotel bookings in the country and together are a dominant force in online flight booking. Naspers, a Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed internet and media company, which owned a 91 per cent stake in ibibo, will become the single largest shareholder (40 per cent) in MakeMyTrip after selling its entire stake in ibibo.
Together, ibibo and MakeMyTrip, booked 9.7 million air transactions and 6.6 million hotel transactions in FY16. Ibibo, which also owns bus ticket booking platform redbus, allows MakeMyTrip to enter this new business. Redbus did over 17 million bus ticket transactions in FY16. The next growth rush for MakeMyTrip is expected to come from online hotel booking. Currently, only 15 per cent of the total hotel bookings are done online in the country. For air ticketing, in comparison, almost half of all transactions happen online. Online travel companies are investing heavily to expand mobile transactions for hotel bookings and this is expected to boost growth for the segment. MakeMyTrip will retain all the leading brands of ibibo: goibibo, redbus and Ryde (a taxi booking platform).
Kalra's path to success, though, wasn't without its bumps. Soon after the company was set up in 2000, some of the investors went back on commitments as the dot-com bubble was beginning to burst. The 9/11 incident in September 2001 further hurt investments in travel market. Kalra was forced to plough personal resources into the business. Some of his early employees - Rajesh Magow and Keyur Joshi - offered to take salary cuts and also chipped in with savings. Both Magow and Joshi were in turn made co-founders. Joshi is now a strategic advisor while Magow is the CEO (India).
Mohit Gupta, COO-online at MakeMyTrip, says Kalra has an open-minded approach to wealth creation. When the company went for an initial public offering in 2010, hundreds of employees who had stocks turned wealthier. This one trait of co-creating has helped Kalra to retain talent. "He is also someone who strikes a wonderful balance between a very demanding CEO and a very sensitive colleague," says Gupta, who joined the company from Pepsi in 2008.
Kalra is also known for his ability to get talent from diverse sectors and make them contribute to the organisation. While Gupta was a vice-president (marketing) at Pepsi, many of his colleagues come from companies like P&G, Google, Amazon and Yahoo. "He is extremely good at hiring and motivating different kinds of people," says Gupta.
Besides being thoughtful, Kalra is said to be highly accessible to all his colleagues, irrespective of seniority. "He remembers most names and takes out time to meet colleagues in their moment of joy and sorrow," says a colleague.
Outside the company, he is respected in the industry for his business acumen. Ankur Bhatia, executive director of Bird Group, which has interests in hospitality and aviation, has known Kalra before he set up MakeMyTrip. "He is a great business partner and very focused in his approach," says Bhatia, whose company Amadeus is a tech partner for MakeMyTrip.
MakeMyTrip has also invested in other companies in the travel space. Ixigo, a metasearch travel company, is one of them. Aloke Bajpai, chief executive officer and co-founder, ixigo, calls Kalra a mentor. When ixigo was being set up ten years ago, Bajpai had met Kalra to show the product and get his feedback. In 2011, MakeMyTrip invested in ixigo. "Even though Deep is not from the tech background, his ability to understand how Indian consumers perceive and interact with online products is significant," says Bajpai.
