Meet Vineet Chirania, IIT alumnus whose Rs 80 crore firm is part of Adani's big plans for…

Billionaire Gautam Adani-led Adani Group is in the process of acquiring online train ticket booking platform Trainman. The Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) board recently informed NSE that wholly owned group subsidiary Adani Digital Labs has agreed to acquire 100% equity shares in Trainman, owned by Stark Enterprises Pvt Ltd. 

Trainman was founded by IIT Roorkee alumni Vineet Chirania and Karan Kumar. Chirania serves as CEO while Kumar is the CTO. The Gurugram-based ticketing company is an authorised train ticket booking partner of IRCTC. Trainman’s app boasts more than 80 lakh downloads. The company claims to have completed over a million bookings. 

CEO Chirania is a tech executive-turned-entrepreneur with a decade of industry experience. Delhi educated Chirania did BTech and MTech from IIT Roorkee. He worked for firms like JP Morgan Chase and Ixigo before founding Trainman.

The challenges railway passengers face to get their ticket confirmed inspired Chirania to create Trainman. It specialises in PNR status prediction. Trainman began as a bootstrapped company but has raised around Rs 9 crore till date, Entrackr reported. It was valued at around $10 million (around Rs 80 crore) when it last raised funds in July 2022. 

The acquisition is part of Adani Group’s plan for the online travel and ticketing space. Earlier, the group had acquired a minority stake in Flipkart-owned ClearTrip. Adani launched flight ticket and cab booking platform Adani One in 2022.