Mahindra Holidays Acquires 12% Stake in Giftxoxo & Frogo

Leading experiences, activities and rewards platform, Nreach Online Services Pvt. Ltd., said today that it has signed an agreement of investment with India’s largest leisure hospitality provider, Mahindra Holidays.

The strategic decision to acquire a 12 per cent stake in the Bengaluru based company which runs two brands, namely, Giftxoxo.com & Frogo.in, comes as a move to expand Mahindra Holiday’s offerings and increase their reach to over 2 lakh Club Mahindra members. The company, however, has not yet disclosed any financial details of the stake acquisition.

Commenting on the development, Sumit Khandelwal, Co-Founder, Giftxoxo & Frogo and Frogo.in said, “We are excited to partner with Mahindra Holidays to create and expand experience as a business in India and globally. Our strength and understanding of experience business coupled with strong brand name of Mahindra group will help us create a strong supply of curated experiences, build a robust and scalable technology platform and provide value to end customers. The vision of Giftxoxo to improve the lives of individuals with experiences and activities matches strongly with the business of Mahindra Holidays. We believe that this will create immense value for both entities and expand the outlook of leisure beyond movies, malls & restaurants.”

“We have built a fundamental business based on a strong value proposition to all our stakeholders. This philosophy matches with Mahindra group’s ideals of creating a sustainable value business. We want to leverage this partnership and reach greater heights of business in India and abroad. I would like to thank Dinesh Rai, MD, Premoid Global Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd., our financial advisor and Crawford Bayley & Co., our legal advisor for this partnership. I would also like to thank my family, friends, the entire team at Giftxoxo and our customers who have relentlessly stood by us on our journey and helped us grow with each passing year.”, said Manoj Agarwal, Co-Founder of Giftxoxo & Frogo and Frogo.in.

Adding to this, Abhishek Kumar, Co-Founder, Giftxoxo & Frogo also stated, “This is a great value add to the Giftxoxo family to get associated with the Mahindra Group. We being a nascent and agile organization expect to get a boost up from the expertise and experience of the Mahindra Group. This will also help us adopt to latest technologies at a faster pace and scale to new markets. We welcome their investment, and appreciate the confidence they’ve expressed in our brand, distinguished offering, idealistic leadership and strong growth opportunities.” Speaking on the same, Kushal Agarwal, Co-Founder of Gitfxoxo & Frogo said, "There's a huge opportunity to organize the last mile activity and experiences market. We're building a marketplace model to address this opportunity and we believe this association will strengthen our efforts towards it."

“We are excited to partner with ‘Giftxoxo’ as a strategic investor. This will enable us to expand our offerings of unique and memorable experiences, specially curated, for our 2 lakh Club Mahindra members. Our ‘Club’ members will now have more opportunities to bond with their families not only at our 46 resorts in India and abroad but also in their hometowns, year-round”, said Managing Director & CEO, MHRIL, Kavinder Singh.

Giftxoxo, launched in 2012, offers over 5000 experiences across categories such as adventure, wellness, fine-dining, hobbies & workshops and philanthropy. It also offers a SaaS enabled platform for Rewards & Recognitions to corporates. It’s consumer brand, Frogo helps users discover and book activities, experiences and things to do such as Microlight flying, Dolphin tours, camel ride on beach, city tours etc. to do in city or at a travel destination.

Talking about the venture, Naveen Kshatriya, Managing Partner of Kshatriya Ventures said, “We have seen great focus and passion for and learning amongst the founders of GiftXOXO. In conjunction with a unique business model and outstanding customer focus we have seen them grow this business from strength to strength. We are glad that their hard work and robust business acumen have led to these results. We believe that there are significant synergies in Giftxoxo and Mahindra holidays’ businesses. We are sure that the coming together of both parties will create a greater value for all stakeholders. Mahindra group is one of the most credible names in the businesses and can bring immense financial and strategic strengths to the business.”

Giftxoxo & Frogo have been growing steadily over the past four years and now caters to over 700 clients across India and around the world. The company has also won prestigious awards such as, best Mobile App Award at GMASA 2016, CNBC Young Turks, Future of India Award 2016 and People Matters HR Spotlight Award 2016.

Giftxoxo Acqui-hires Online Hobby Platform BookMyInterest in a Cash-and-Stock Deal

Experiential rewards and recognition startup Giftxoxo has acqui-hired Bengaluru-based startup BookMyInterest, a marketplace for hobbies and leisure activities, in a cash-and-stock deal. This is the company’s second acqui-hire in eight months. In October 2015, Giftxoxo acqi-hired another city-based startup Yipeedo that helps Bengalureans discover and book leisure activities. Also in January 2016, it had acquired Actizone, an online portal to discover extra-curricular activities, for an undisclosed amount.

As part of the acquisition, BookMyInterest's Co-founders have received a few lakhs in cash and equity in Giftxoxo.

The startup is targeting a turnover of ₹100 crore in FY 2017. These experiential gifting options can also be booked from its location-based mobile app Frogo. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Giftxoxo has regional offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.

Founded in 2012 by Sumit Khandelwal, Manoj Aggarwal, Abhishek Kumar and Kushal Agrawal with a seed investment of Rs. 1.5 crore from an HNI, Giftxoxo is in talks for a Series A funding of $3-5 million, which it hopes to close in two weeks.

The company offers 4,000 gifting experiences in five categories — fine dining, health and wellness, adventure, hobbies and arts, and offbeat travel. Bangalore-based Nreach Online Services Pvt. Ltd, which runs Giftxoxo aims to leverage the customer base of BookMyInterest to enhance its current offering.

BookMyInterest which is owned and operated by MyInt Technologies Pvt Ltd., facilitates search of verified and rated service providers catering to various interests and hobbies. It has a vast database of activities and experiences including cooking classes, fitness programmes, dance classes, hikes and expeditions.

“We are in sync with the promoters of Giftxoxo and their approach towards understanding this market segment. Riding on their strong domain knowledge, we look forward to helping our customers choose the best activities and experiences. We believe that jointly we can improve the quality of offerings, the ability to grow and bring better efficiency to this unorganised market in India,” said Naveen M – Co-founder of BookMyInterest.

Story of Giftxoxo - An online gift discovery and recommendation platform

Gifting is a large opportunity across the world. Almost 5% of the revenue in e-commerce and offline players is contributed through gifting. Giftxoxo is an online gift discovery and recommendation platform helps the gifter with the best option according to various parameters. It was bootstrapped in early 2012 by Manoj Agarwal and Sumit Khandelwal.

Started with an office in Bangalore, they have expanded to Delhi and Mumbai after angel funding in May 2013. The portal started when Manoj and Sumit discussed some ideas which were shaping well in early 2012. "Manoj was handling gifting category as part of his marketing role at Flipkart. I found some good ideas working well in gifting internationally. Two of us iterated on couple of these ideas and finally started with Giftxoxo as a social gifting company. We pivoted and iterated as per market needs," says Sumit. "Later in 3-4 months, Abhishek and Kushal joined along our journey. Today we are a team of 25 people across three locations," adds Manoj.

[caption id="attachment_94613" align="aligncenter" width="576"] Founders of Giftxoxo - (L-R) Manoj Agarwal, Abhishek Kumar, and Sumit Khandelwal[/caption]

Giftxoxo is a unique gifting company solving two fundamental problems in gifting industry. One is the problem of gifter who is always grappling with the issue of finding the perfect gift according to a budget, location, interests, occasion and age of the receiver. Second is the problem at the receiver side, who is generally unhappy with the gift received either because he/she already have it or because it’s of no use. These two problems have made the exchange of gifts a very formal and uninteresting exercise, both for the sender and receiver of gifts. Giftxoxo brings novel and effective solutions to these problems through its discovery and choice gifting products.

"It also suggests gift options according to the social graph and buying pattern of the gift receiver. This solves the problem of finding the perfect gift. Giftxoxo experience gift box, xoxo voucher and choice cards solve the problem of receiver. "Each of these products is designed around the concept of choice. The receiver thus gets to choose any one option within the choice he/she gets," says Sumit, a TAPMI, Manipal Alumnus who has 7 years of work experience in sales and marketing.

"Overall no other player is actually solving both sides of the problems in gifting as we do. Having taken the first mover advantage, working with over 250 corporate clients and more than 50% repeat we are placed well in market," adds Manoj who has worked with Yahoo, Manipal Education and Flipkart for 7 years. Apart from that they are getting good traction on their website.

They plan to expand to more cities and focus on B2C aggressively. "We are introducing some breakthrough features on our website which would make gifting much more engaging," says Abhishek, an alumnus of IIT Bombay with a background of providing technology solutions for Supply Chain, E-Commerce, Business Intelligence, and Mobiles. They plan to become the largest experience gifting company in India.

As a message for future entrepreneurs, Kushal says, "Do a good homework before you start. Meet people in the ecosystem and take a quick informed call. Execute, Iterate fast and get your business model right. Customers, revenue, funding and other things will come as long as your business model is right and you have put good efforts in execution." Kushal handles marketing and vendor relations at Giftxox.