General Atlantic to acquire a minority stake in travel-tech platform TBO

NEW DELHI: Top investment firm General Atlantic on Sunday announced to acquire a minority stake in global travel distribution company TBO Tek Ltd for an undisclosed sum.

For the deal, General Atlantic entered into an agreement with entities held by Affirma Capital. Subsequent to this transaction, Affirma Capital will continue to remain invested in TBO, the company said in a statement.

“We see immense potential in the path ahead for TBO, including global expansion opportunities, and are excited to partner with the Company to help enable the next generation of travel globally”, said Shantanu Rastogi, Managing Director and Head of India at General Atlantic.

Founded in 2006, TBO is a global travel distribution platform with $2.73 billion in gross transaction value for FY23 with a presence in more than 100 countries.

TBO allows the large and fragmented base of suppliers to market inventory and set prices for the similarly large and fragmented buyer base.

For buyers, TBO’s platform is an integrated, multi-currency and multi-lingual one-stop solution.

On average, more than 40K+ annual transacting Buyers get real-time access to global travel inventory of more than 700 airlines and over 1 million hotels on the platform.

“We are grateful to Affirma Capital who have supported us immensely during the last five years, including during the Covid pandemic. We believe that General Atlantic is an ideal partner for this stage of our growth journey,” said Gaurav Bhatnagar and Ankush Nijhawan, co-founders of TBO.

General Atlantic has more than $77 billion in assets under management.

“TBO is on the cusp of consolidating the travel technology landscape, and we continue to believe in its potential to aggregate and digitize travel for travel partners across the globe and are excited to continue to retain a significant minority stake in the business”, said Udai Dhawan, founding partner and India Head at Affirma Capital.