Indian electronic payment company Paytm is in talks with online travel company Via.com as it doubles down its travel and hospitality business. Paytm, which raised $1.4 billion from Softbank in May, has held preliminary discussions, according to four people aware of developments.

Travel Business Crosses Sales of $500 million

Paytm’s travel business crosses gross sales of $500 million in January, driven by bookings of two million tickets that month. Paytm which also counts Alibaba Group as well as SAIF Partners among its backers has projected annualized gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $2 million for its travel business by March.

Via.com raises about $1.5 million in Funding

Via.com which is backed by Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital has raised about $ 15 million in funding. Via.com earlier called as FlightRaja has 100,000 active travel partners and covers 13000 pin codes across Asia.

In Discussions to Acquire Nearby and Little  

Paytm has been in hyper-development mode the most recent a year, hoping to gobble up properties crosswise over segments. It was in advanced discussions to obtain deals platforms Nearby and Little. In July, ET announced that Paytm Mall, spun out from parent One97 Communications this year to an element called Paytm E-business, had started exchanges to get a stake in online food merchant BigBasket.

If the deal goes successful, could see Paytm mall to invest about $200 million in BigBasket for significant minority stake, so that to challenge Amazon in online grocery retail.