Startup Deep Dive : MakeMyTrip — how a near-death dot-com survivor built India’s largest travel company

In 2001, MakeMyTrip was down to about a month of working capital and had shrunk its staff from 40 people to 12 in a single weekend. Twenty-four years later, the company Deep Kalra nearly shut down handles close to half of India’s flight and hotel bookings, and in 2025 it raised $3.1 billion largely to buy back a third of itself from its biggest shareholder, China’s Trip.com Group.

MakeMyTrip Limited, listed on the Nasdaq since 2010, is by most measures India’s largest online travel company: record gross bookings of $10.4 billion for the year ended March 2026, a portfolio that includes Goibibo and redBus, and an air-ticketing market share above 50%, according to industry trackers. But scale has never meant safety for this company. It has been near-bankrupt, gutted by a pandemic, fined by India’s competition regulator and accused by a short seller of padding its profits — more than once inside a quarter century. This is the story of how it kept coming back.

Quick facts

What they do

MakeMyTrip sells travel to Indians: flights, hotels, holiday packages, bus tickets, rail bookings, cabs, visas and travel insurance, bundled into one app and website. It does not own aircraft, hotels or buses. It sits between travellers and travel suppliers — airlines, hotel chains, bus operators, small guesthouses — and takes a cut, or a fee, on every booking it routes through its platform. Its customer base spans leisure travellers booking a family holiday, business travellers on corporate accounts through its MyBiz platform, and price-sensitive users who arrive through Goibibo and redBus, brands it acquired rather than built. The company is headquartered in Gurugram and reports its results in US dollars because it is incorporated as a foreign private issuer on the Nasdaq, an unusual structure among Indian consumer internet companies, most of which list on Indian exchanges.

The origin

Deep Kalra, a chartered accountant by training who studied economics at St Stephen’s College and did an MBA at IIM Ahmedabad, spent the 1990s at ABN AMRO, then AMF Bowling and GE Capital, as reported by his own retellings of the period. The idea for MakeMyTrip came, as Kalra has described it, from trying to sell his wife’s car online and noticing how little of India’s commerce had moved to the internet. He founded the company in 2000, but the founding insight was narrower than “put travel online”: India’s own consumers barely had internet access or credit cards in 2000, but Non-Resident Indians in the United States did, and they had no easy way to book flights back home. MakeMyTrip’s first market was not India at all — it was NRIs booking US-to-India tickets, a beachhead chosen precisely because the payment and internet infrastructure needed to sell there already existed. Only in September 2005, once domestic broadband and card penetration had caught up, did the company formally launch airline ticketing, packages and hotels inside India, according to the company’s own history as recorded on Wikipedia and in contemporary profiles of Kalra.

The struggle years

The first near-death came fast. Kalra has recounted what he calls a “triple whammy” in 2001: the dot-com crash reached India just as the September 2001 attacks in the US froze international travel demand, and the SARS scare added a third shock to a company barely a year old, as he told Business Today in November 2023. Early investors wanted out. MakeMyTrip was reportedly down to about a month’s working capital, and the team shrank from 40 people to 12 over a single weekend. Kalra says he bought out nervous investors for roughly Rs 46 lakh in what he later learned was formally called a distress buyout, and refocused the business on the Indian domestic market rather than the US-NRI niche it started with.

The second near-death was COVID-19. MakeMyTrip’s revenue fell from $511.5 million in the year ended March 2020 to $163.4 million in the year ended March 2021, a 68% collapse, as reported by Inc42’s analysis of the company’s own filings. Kalra has said the business went from a roughly $500 million-a-month gross bookings run rate before the pandemic to close to zero within weeks of India’s March 2020 lockdown, in comments reported by YourStory in August 2020. The company’s co-founders took zero salary from April 2020, the rest of the leadership team took roughly a 50% pay cut, and MakeMyTrip laid off about 350 employees — close to a tenth of its workforce — in June 2020 to conserve cash, according to Entrackr’s reporting at the time. The company’s own filings recorded an operating loss of $67.7 million for FY21, an improvement on the $429.4 million operating loss of FY20 but still deep in the red.

The turning point

The turning point was not a single funding round or acquisition; it was the whiplash from near-zero bookings in April 2020 to record scale five years later. Before: a gross bookings run rate that Kalra says fell from about $500 million a month to almost nothing within weeks, revenue of $163.4 million for all of FY21, and an adjusted net loss of $9.2 million for the year, against an adjusted loss of $86.5 million the year before, as the company reported to the SEC. After: gross bookings of $9.8 billion in FY25 and $10.4 billion in FY26, record revenue of $1,044.0 million in FY26, and a business large enough that its majority shareholder, Trip.com Group, agreed in 2025 to sell back most of its stake for $3.1 billion — a transaction only a company of real scale could absorb. The pandemic did not just test MakeMyTrip’s survival; the shape of its recovery, tilted toward domestic leisure and bus travel as international corridors reopened slowly, set the segment mix the company still runs today.

The money behind it

MakeMyTrip’s capital story has two distinct chapters. In the first, it was a venture-backed startup: early accounts of the company describe seed capital from the co-founders themselves and from eVentures, followed by later-stage venture rounds, before MakeMyTrip listed on the Nasdaq on 17 September 2010, raising about $80.5 million at a $478 million valuation — reportedly the first US listing by an Indian company since July 2006.

In the second chapter, MakeMyTrip effectively became a battleground for two rival travel conglomerates. In January 2016, China’s Ctrip (later renamed Trip.com Group) invested $180 million for roughly a 27% stake. In October 2016, MakeMyTrip agreed to acquire the whole of the ibibo Group — owner of Goibibo and redBus — from Naspers’s MIH Internet unit in an all-stock deal worth about $1.8 billion, completed in January 2017; Naspers and Tencent together became MakeMyTrip’s largest shareholder with about 40% of the combined company, per the company’s SEC filings and contemporaneous reporting by YourStory and Global Venturing. In April 2019, Ctrip swapped shares with Naspers to take its own stake to about 49%, becoming MakeMyTrip’s dominant shareholder for the next six years.

That changed in 2025. MakeMyTrip raised roughly $3.1 billion through a mix of primary equity and convertible senior notes specifically to repurchase Class B shares from Trip.com Group, cutting the Chinese company’s stake from about 45.3% to 16.9% and triggering changes to board nomination rights, according to Skift’s July 2025 reporting and Trip.com Group’s own disclosures. Trip.com Group said the sale was part of “efforts to optimize its investment portfolio,” and confirmed it would remain MakeMyTrip’s largest minority shareholder. The net effect: after a quarter century, control of India’s largest online travel company shifted back toward Indian and diversified institutional ownership, though the new convertible debt now sits on MakeMyTrip’s balance sheet and shows up directly in its profit numbers, as later sections make clear.

How it makes money

MakeMyTrip does not sell tickets so much as sell access to inventory it does not own. On flights, it earns a commission and override incentives from airlines plus a customer-facing convenience fee on every ticket; independent business-model write-ups put the airline segment’s effective take rate in the low single digits of ticket value, reflecting how thin flight margins are across the industry. Hotels and holiday packages carry a far fatter margin — commission rates that industry analysts estimate can run into the mid-teens to mid-twenties percent of booking value for many properties — which is why hotels and packages, not flights, generate the largest share of MakeMyTrip’s revenue despite flights driving more of its transaction volume. Bus ticketing through redBus adds a smaller commission on a high-volume, low-ticket-price business. The part people consistently get wrong is assuming MakeMyTrip’s economics look like an airline’s or a hotel’s: it holds no inventory risk on rooms or seats, so its margin structure behaves more like a marketplace than a travel operator, and its costs are dominated by marketing and personnel and, since 2025, meaningfully by interest expense on its convertible notes rather than by anything resembling fuel or room-servicing costs.

The numbers

MakeMyTrip reports in US dollars because it is Nasdaq-listed; figures below are as filed with the SEC, with approximate rupee-crore equivalents in parentheses using a single current conversion rate of $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics) — a notional conversion for scale, not the historical exchange rate in each year.

Read the profit line carefully, because it tells a different story from revenue growth alone. FY24’s outsized $216.7 million reported profit was not an operating story — it included a one-time $126.1 million credit from recognising deferred tax assets and a $30.6 million non-cash gain from revaluing convertible notes, as the company disclosed in its FY24 results. Strip those out and adjusted net profit rose steadily and far less dramatically: $52.9 million in FY23, $137.2 million in FY24, $178.2 million in FY25 and $171.0 million in FY26. FY26’s reported profit fell 45.8% year-on-year not because the underlying business weakened — adjusted operating profit actually grew to $188.8 million from $167.3 million — but because net finance costs jumped to $77.6 million from $3.9 million, largely interest on the convertible notes issued for the 2025 Trip.com buyback and foreign-exchange losses, per the company’s FY26 earnings release. In short: the operating business has grown every year since the pandemic; the reported bottom line has bounced around because of tax credits, note revaluations and now debt servicing.

Where the money comes from

In FY25, MakeMyTrip’s segments broke down roughly as follows, per its results announcement: hotels and packages revenue of $429.5 million, up 25.7% year-on-year; air ticketing revenue of $373.1 million, up 19.7%; bus ticketing revenue of $131 million, up 30.6%; and other services, including corporate travel and newer verticals, at $72 million, up 50.7%. The surprise for anyone who thinks of MakeMyTrip as “the flight-booking site” is that hotels and packages, not air ticketing, has been the largest revenue segment for several years running, precisely because hotel commissions run so much richer than airline ones. The second surprise is growth rate: the smallest segments, bus ticketing and “other,” are growing fastest, meaning an increasing share of MakeMyTrip’s incremental revenue is coming from outside its founding business of flights. Geographically, the company remains overwhelmingly an India-outbound and domestic-India business, though it also operates in other South Asian and Southeast Asian markets on a smaller scale.

The risks

First, MakeMyTrip discloses meaningful, unhedged currency exposure: a 10.0% move in the US dollar against other currencies it holds would have changed FY26 profit by $22.6 million, and the company states it does not currently use hedging arrangements to manage this, per its own SEC disclosures. Second, competition is intensifying from below even as MakeMyTrip holds the largest share: Ixigo and Cleartrip are contesting the number-two position, EaseMyTrip and Yatra hold high single-digit shares each, Ixigo leads train bookings with an estimated 60% share, and global players Booking.com, Expedia and Agoda compete hard in hotels, per market-share estimates reported across Indian trade press. Third, MakeMyTrip carries real regulatory and reputational risk around competitive conduct: the Competition Commission of India fined the company (along with peers) roughly ₹223 crore, reported as about $26 million, in October 2022 for anti-competitive and abusive practices in its hotel-booking business, and in early 2026 short seller Morpheus Research alleged — in a report covered by Inc42, VCCircle and Business Today — that MakeMyTrip continued price-parity restrictions in violation of that CCI order, inflated profit through accounting choices and allowed poorly vetted “bad actor” hotels onto its platform; MakeMyTrip’s shares fell on the report, and the allegations remain contested rather than adjudicated. A fourth, newer risk sits inside the numbers already discussed: the $3.1 billion of primary equity and convertible notes raised for the 2025 buyback now generates real interest expense, which was the single biggest reason reported FY26 profit fell even as bookings and adjusted operating profit hit records.

The takeaway

The lesson in MakeMyTrip’s history is not “survive a crisis and you’ll be fine” — plenty of companies survive one crisis and are finished by the next. It is that the company treated each near-death as a reason to change its ownership and capital structure rather than just its operations: a distress buyout of jittery investors in 2001, a Nasdaq listing for permanent capital in 2010, an all-stock merger with a rival that turned two loss-making challengers into one dominant company in 2017, and a $3.1 billion self-purchase in 2025 to unwind a shareholder relationship that had grown too large. Surviving the crisis was necessary but not sufficient; renegotiating who owned the company, each time, is what let MakeMyTrip keep compounding instead of merely recovering.

Frequently asked questions

Who founded MakeMyTrip and when?

Deep Kalra founded MakeMyTrip in 2000, along with co-founders Keyur Joshi, Rajesh Magow and Sachin Bhatia. The company began domestic Indian operations, including airline ticketing and hotels, in September 2005, after its initial years focused on Non-Resident Indian travellers booking flights between the US and India.

Is MakeMyTrip profitable?

Yes, but unevenly. MakeMyTrip reported net profit of $216.7 million in FY24, $95.3 million in FY25 and $51.7 million in FY26, after a net loss in FY23. The swings owe more to one-time tax credits, convertible-note revaluations and rising interest costs than to the underlying operating business, which has posted rising adjusted operating profit every year since the pandemic.

Who owns MakeMyTrip now?

Trip.com Group remains the largest single outside shareholder, but its stake fell from about 45.3% to about 16.9% after a $3.1 billion share buyback in 2025. Founder and chairman Deep Kalra and other institutional and public shareholders hold the rest, since MakeMyTrip has traded as a public company on the Nasdaq since 2010.

What is MakeMyTrip’s market value today?

MakeMyTrip’s market capitalisation was estimated at about $4.51 billion as of 18 September 2026 by stockanalysis.com, and at roughly $4.8 billion (about ₹494.32 billion) around the same week by other market-data trackers, reflecting a stock that has fallen sharply in 2026 even as revenue and bookings hit records.

Who are MakeMyTrip’s main competitors?

Domestically, Ixigo, Cleartrip, EaseMyTrip and Yatra compete for the space below MakeMyTrip’s dominant share, with Ixigo notably leading train ticket bookings. In hotels specifically, global platforms Booking.com, Expedia and Agoda are significant competitors, while MakeMyTrip’s own Goibibo and redBus brands compete in adjacent segments under the same parent.

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• MakeMyTrip, Wikipedia, accessed September 2026 — founding, IPO details, Trip.com/Ctrip stake history, ibibo merger, CCI penalty
• Deep Kalra: The Visionary Entrepreneur Behind MakeMyTrip’s Success, 5paisa Finschool, accessed September 2026
• “Most of us slept in the office”: MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra recollects early days’ hustle, Business Today, November 2023
• MakeMyTrip’s Tryst with Turbulence and its Journey Ahead, Forbes India
• MakeMyTrip slashes salaries due to Covid-19, Entrackr, March 2020
• MakeMyTrip lays off 350 employees to conserve capital, Entrackr, June 2020
• Had many sleepless nights over layoffs: MakeMyTrip, YourStory, August 2020
• [What The Financials] MakeMyTrip Revenue Plummets By 68% In FY21, Inc42, June 2021
• MakeMyTrip receives $82.5M as Ibibo completes the merger, YourStory, February 2017
• MakeMyTrip and Ibibo join forces in $1.8bn deal, Global Venturing, October 2016
• MakeMyTrip’s Q4 profit jumps multifold to $172 mn on tax credit gains, Business Standard, May 2024
• MakeMyTrip earns $216M profit in FY24 as travel demand rebounds, YourStory, May 2024
• MakeMyTrip Reports Record Gross Bookings and Revenue for 2025, PhocusWire, May 2025
• MakeMyTrip clocks record $9.8 bn in gross bookings for FY25, Business Standard / The Arc, May 2025
• MAKEMYTRIP LIMITED ANNOUNCES FISCAL 2026 FOURTH QUARTER AND FULL YEAR RESULTS, company SEC 6-K filing via StockTitan, May 2026
• MakeMyTrip Posts Fiscal 2026 Results With Revenue Growth but Profit Decline, TipRanks, May 2026
• MakeMyTrip Raises $3.1 Billion to Shrink Trip.com Group’s Stake, Skift, July 2025
• Trip.com Retains Key Stake In MakeMyTrip Following Share Buyback, RTTNews, June 2025
• MakeMyTrip raises $2.6B to buy back stake from Trip.com Group, PhocusWire, 2025
• MakeMyTrip (MMYT) Market Cap & Net Worth, stockanalysis.com, accessed 18 September 2026
• MakeMyTrip market capitalisation (₹494.32 billion), companiesmarketcap.com / market data aggregators, September 2026
• MakeMyTrip (MMYT) Number of Employees, stockanalysis.com, accessed September 2026 — 5,122 employees as of 31 March 2025
• Short Seller Morpheus Accuses MakeMyTrip Of Anti-Competitive Practices, Profit Inflation, Inc42, 2026
• US short-seller Morpheus alleges MakeMyTrip defying regulators, misleading customers, VCCircle, 2026
• MakeMyTrip padded profits, misled customers, allowed “bad actor” hotels in its platform: Report, Business Today, 2026
• India OTA market share and segment estimates (Ixigo, Cleartrip, EaseMyTrip, Agoda), Whalesbook / industry trade press, 2025–2026
• MakeMyTrip Business Model, GrowthX and industry business-model analyses, accessed September 2026 — commission and take-rate ranges

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