Travelstack Tech Limited IPO

01At a glance

What the company does — runs TravelPlus, which the 1Lattice report it cites calls India's largest hotels-focused corporate travel platform by FY25 revenue, offering booking, policy compliance, GST invoicing and expense tools with relationship managers and 24/7 support; it also runs the FabHotels and Via private-label hotel brands, with 1,379 onboarded properties at September 2025 (DRHP p.29). It was formerly Casa2 Stays Private Limited, incorporated in 2014 (DRHP p.1).

Who pays it — enterprise clients booking travel for employees; hotels were 92.71% of gross transaction value in the six months to September 2025 (DRHP p.143).

Why it is raising money — ₹1,350.00 million for working capital, ₹450.00 million to repay borrowings, and the rest for general purposes (DRHP p.30).

How fast it has grown — revenue from ₹4,113 million in FY23 to ₹5,478 million in FY24 and ₹7,163 million in FY25, and ₹4,004 million in the six months to September 2025 (DRHP p.33).

The one thing to understand — a large, low-margin booking business that has not yet made an operating profit. Service costs paid to hotels and other suppliers were ₹3,275.36 million of ₹4,003.72 million revenue in the six months, the loss before tax was ₹52.43 million, and operating cash flow has been negative in every period shown (DRHP p.48, DRHP p.87).

02The business, in plain words

A corporate travel platform lets a company's employees book hotels and travel within the employer's policy, consolidates the bills and GST invoices, and charges the employer the booking value; it keeps a share after paying the hotel.

A consulting firm sends staff to a client site in Pune → employees book rooms through TravelPlus within the firm's travel policy, often at a FabHotels property → the firm receives one GST-compliant invoice → Travelstack pays the hotel and keeps its take.

The take rate — booking value excluding GST less the cost paid to suppliers — was 17.17% in the six months (DRHP p.143).

Earnings equation: Profit ≈ gross transaction value × take rate − staff, technology and marketing cost. Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes share-based pay and the preference-share revaluations, was 1.88% of GTV excluding GST in the six months (DRHP p.144).

03Where the money comes from

Source: DRHP p.143. H1 FY26 is six months.

04The growth record

Source: DRHP p.33, DRHP p.48, DRHP p.87, DRHP p.144. H1 FY26 is six months.

05What the growth is made of

Booking volume. GTV grew 78% from FY23 to FY25 while the take rate held near 18.5% (our arithmetic, DRHP p.143). Revenue grew 74% over the same period (our arithmetic, DRHP p.33). Non-hotel bookings rose from 0.29% of GTV to 7.29% (our arithmetic, DRHP p.143).

06Earnings quality

The reported numbers are dominated by non-operating items. Losses of ₹927.53 million in FY23 and ₹1,140.74 million in FY24 were mostly fair-value charges on compulsorily convertible preference shares — ₹867.26 million and ₹895.03 million — recorded as exceptional items (DRHP p.87, DRHP p.354). The six-month profit of ₹321.63 million came from a deferred tax credit of ₹374.06 million on a pre-tax loss of ₹52.43 million (DRHP p.87, DRHP p.352). Adjusted EBITDA also excludes share-based pay of ₹76.05 million in the six months (DRHP p.349). Operating cash flow was negative ₹942.74 million across FY23 to September 2025 (our arithmetic, DRHP p.48).

07The balance sheet

Source: DRHP p.33.

Net worth was negative in March 2023 and March 2024, when the preference shares were carried as a financial liability at fair value, and positive by March 2025; the pages read do not explain the FY25 change (DRHP p.33, DRHP p.348). Borrowings exclude preference shares classified as financial liabilities (DRHP p.34). The 25,278,440 preference shares will convert into 100,554,195 equity shares before the red herring prospectus (DRHP p.32).

08What the money is for

Source: DRHP p.30.

09Who is selling

Source: DRHP p.30. The last row is our arithmetic. The total offered is 26,852,969 shares (DRHP p.29).

10Promoters

The promoters are Vaibhav Aggarwal and Adarssh Mnpuria (DRHP p.29). They hold 90.42% of the equity shares now in issue but 25.37% on a fully diluted basis, after preference-share conversion (DRHP p.31).

11Who already owns it

Source: DRHP p.31, DRHP p.32. The last row is our arithmetic. PGP India Growth Fund I holds 5.77% and Panthera Growth II 5.65% (DRHP p.31).

12What changed just before the IPO

• First profit — six-month profit from a deferred tax credit (DRHP p.87).
• Net worth — turned positive in FY25 (DRHP p.33).
• Take rate — down to 17.17% in the six months from 18.64% in FY25 (DRHP p.143).
• Preference shares — conversion into equity due before the red herring prospectus (DRHP p.32).

13Capacity and expansion

The business is a technology platform plus an asset-light hotel brand portfolio of 1,379 properties (DRHP p.29). The proceeds fund working capital and debt repayment (DRHP p.30).

14Market size and industry structure

The 1Lattice report cited in the offer document projects India's corporate travel management market to grow from ₹3.6 trillion in FY2025 to ₹6.9 trillion by FY2030, and says economy hotels are 69% of corporate hotel demand and 95% unbranded (DRHP p.29). Those projections are 1Lattice's, and newboard has not tested them.

15Competitive position

What the document claims, and what it rests on:

• Category leadership in hotels-focused corporate travel, citing 1Lattice (DRHP p.29).
• Own hotel brands — FabHotels and Via — to control inventory (DRHP p.29).

Against that: intense competition, dependence on the platform's reliability, client retention risk and a record of losses (DRHP p.35).

16Peers the company named

None. The document states that no listed company in India or abroad has a comparable business model and scale (DRHP p.141).

No P/E is possible for the company until a price band is set.

17Risks, in plain words

• Travel demand. A downturn in corporate travel or hotel demand (DRHP p.35).
• Platform. Outages could lose clients (DRHP p.35).
• Clients. Retaining and growing enterprise accounts (DRHP p.35).
• Competition. An intensely competitive industry (DRHP p.35).
• Losses. Net losses in each of the last three fiscal years (DRHP p.35).
• Cash. Negative operating cash flow (DRHP p.48).

18Litigation and regulatory matters

Source: DRHP p.34.

19Related-party transactions

Not read in detail for this study.

20What the offer document does not say

In the sections read for this study, the document does not give:

• Who the largest clients are, or how concentrated revenue is, in the pages read.
• Why the deferred tax asset was recognised now, after years of losses, in the pages read.
• What the ₹265.83 million of claims against the company concern, mostly tax, in the pages read.
• How FabHotels properties are contracted and who bears occupancy risk, in the pages read.
• The price band, lot size or issue dates, which is normal at DRHP stage.

21Five questions for management

1. What is the loss before tax excluding share-based pay, and when does the company expect operating cash flow to turn positive?
2. What evidence supports recognising a ₹374 million deferred tax asset in 2025?
3. Why did the take rate fall to 17.2% in the six months?
4. How many enterprise clients does TravelPlus serve, and what share of GTV do the largest ten provide?
5. What guarantees or minimums does the company give FabHotels and Via property owners?

1Sources and cited facts

This study was read from 1 document the company filed. The 31 figures it cites are listed under the document each came from, with the page and the sentence as printed.