Ziptrrip, a Mumbai-based corporate travel and expense management platform, acquired HelloTravel, an online marketplace that connects travellers with travel agents and tour operators, Pulse 2.0 and other Indian business outlets reported on 25 May 2026. It is the first acquisition Ziptrrip has made since it launched.
Financial terms were not disclosed in any of the reports.
HelloTravel Online becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Wayfarers Technologies Private Limited, the company that runs Ziptrrip. Entrepreneur India and Indian Retailer reported that HelloTravel's founders will leave the business, while its existing operations team stays to manage partner relationships and day-to-day work.
What HelloTravel built
HelloTravel runs a marketplace where travellers describe the trip they want and receive custom itineraries and price quotes from several local agents, which lets them compare offers, according to Venture Intelligence, citing The Economic Times. The agents and tour operators on the platform are verified.
The company says it has more than 7,000 travel partners, more than 200,000 (2 lakh) experience-led holiday packages and an online community of more than 1.5 million people. Pulse 2.0 cited industry reports saying the platform has served more than 10 million (1 crore) travellers.
HelloTravel was co-founded by Pankaj Agarwal and Mohit Shrivastava. Venture Intelligence described it as Noida-based and founded in 2014, while Pulse 2.0 said it had nearly two decades of marketplace experience. No outside funding for HelloTravel was reported.
“This marks an important step in our journey to build an end to end corporate travel 'operating system' spanning across travel bookings, expense management, corporate events, and business leisure.”
Why Ziptrrip is buying
Ziptrrip sells software that books business travel, runs approval workflows and enforces company travel policies, and it analyses travel behaviour and policy compliance to suggest cheaper options. It was founded in 2019 by Shan Prabhakaran and Rishabh Agarwal and says it has handled more than 200,000 trips for over 650 corporate clients. Pulse 2.0 reported that the company became profitable in the 2025 financial year.
The deal is meant to take Ziptrrip beyond routine business bookings into segments that depend on deep supplier networks: business leisure, experiential travel and MICE, the industry term for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions. HelloTravel brings a network of travel agents and destination management companies that Ziptrrip plans to use to widen its supply and its ability to run custom and destination-led trips.
In a LinkedIn post, Rishabh Agarwal said the purchase was a step towards an end-to-end corporate travel operating system covering bookings, expense management, corporate events and business leisure, combining HelloTravel's partner network with Ziptrrip's AI-led travel infrastructure.
Ziptrrip said the combined business would strengthen its work across travel bookings, expense management, corporate events and customised trips. Agarwal said the aim was to offer more seamless and higher-quality travel experiences to both organisations and individual travellers. Venture Intelligence listed incentive travel among the offerings the deal is meant to support, alongside MICE, experiential and business-leisure trips.
What happens to the founders
Reports differed on the founders' future role. Entrepreneur India and Indian Retailer said Pankaj Agarwal and Mohit Shrivastava would exit. Pulse 2.0, summarising Rishabh Agarwal's post, said Ziptrrip planned to work closely with the two travel industry veterans in the next phase of building out its network. The reports did not give their titles after the deal.
HelloTravel's existing team will remain with the business, according to both Venture Intelligence and Entrepreneur India.
Corporate travel platforms reach for leisure
Pulse 2.0 noted that industry observers saw the deal as part of a wider pattern in which corporate travel startups add leisure, experiential and blended trips to their business booking tools. Events and incentive travel need local suppliers, ground handlers and custom packages, which a self-service booking tool for flights and hotels does not usually provide.
By buying a marketplace that already aggregates thousands of agents, Ziptrrip gets that supply side without building it partner by partner. Ziptrrip did not say whether HelloTravel's consumer marketplace would keep operating under its own brand, or how the two products would be combined.
