TravelGuru CEO Ashwin Damera's response to Medianama.com regarding the story about the company being acquired by Expedia: Dear Nikhil, I’m disappointed that mere speculation is being published in the form of a “story”. Many people have called me based on this hearsay and what they have read online. There are many inaccuracies in these reports – the biggest being – there has been no deal signed! What more is there to deny? Warm regards, Ashwin Translation: The valuations reported were completely out of whack. No deal has been signed yet, but that doesn't mean one will not be. It will be difficult for me to deny anything else on the record, so this is all I have to say. Original Story: Online travel portal TravelGuru has sold a majority stake to Expedia, the largest OTA in the world, reports VCCircle. We had also heard that TravelGuru had been acquired, but weren't able to confirm this last week. BCCL also had a Private Treaties investment in TravelGuru, and I'd asked Private Treaties CEO S. Sivakumar about the TravelGuru being bought by Expedia last week, but he offered no comment. As per the report, the majority stake has been acquired for $17 million, at a valuation of $30 million for the combination of TravelGuru and Desiya.com. Something about these numbers doesn't seem to be correct. If you go by earlier news reports, TravelGuru had acquired hotel aggregator Desiya for $25 million. So either the Desiya acquisition was overstated by a significant margin,…
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