MakeMyTrip-backed iXiGO Ropes In Ernesto Cohnen From Amadeus As VP- Products

Gurgaon-based travel search engine iXiGO.com, has appointed Ernesto Cohnen as vice-president (Products). In this role, Cohnen will be responsible for managing the product development lifecycle of iXiGO's travel search, trip planning and mobile products, an official statement said. A four year old startup, IXiGO is a search engine which trawls inventory on other online travel sites to help people choose the best prices for airlines tickets, bus tickets, railway booking, hotels and travel deals.

Prior to this, Cohnen was a software architect at Amadeus IT Group SA (Spain), a travel technology company, where he worked for the past five years and managed a range of projects, including the transition from legacy systems to open-source and mobile platforms. An MBA from the Technical University of Madrid and a Computer Science post-graduate from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Cohen brings over eight years of product & technology experience with companies such as CapGemini and Pragsis.

"Ernesto's proven track record in product design, architecture, delivery & mobile technology, combined with his experience in the travel industry will be an invaluable asset for us," said Rajnish Kumar, CTO & co-Founder, iXiGO.com.

Launched in June 2007 by Aloke Bajpai, Gurgaon-based iXiGO.com positions itself as an online and mobile travel search engine. iXiGO.com searches across multiple airlines, hotels, trains, bus booking sites and online travel portals to find the best travel deals.

Earlier, the company had launched travel search apps for iPhone and Android. More recently, iXiGO.com launched a semantic search engine on Facebook and Twitter that understands and responds to flight searches made in natural language by users of social media platforms.

In August last year, MakeMyTrip Ltd joined hands with its largest shareholder private equity firm SAIF Partners, to acquire a majority stake in Le Travenues Technology Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates travel search engine iXiGO. While MakeMyTrip picked 19.9 per cent stake for $4.8 million, SAIF acquired 56.7 per cent for $13.7 million. The four year old startup first raised a seed investment from BAF Spectrum (Singapore) in 2008, which completely exited from iXiGO with the latest deal.