Bangalore: Bangalore-based event and entertainment guide portal Buzzintown has been acquired by travel portal Yatra Online. Buzzintown is owned by Wortal Technologies, which is headquartered in U.S. and has a pan-India presence.

Founded in 2007 by Amitabh Saran and Uday Bellary, Buzzintown is an entertainment-oriented social network, which is present online as well as on the mobile platform. It provides the opportunities for viral networking across platforms like live events, media, advertising services, sales, and many others.

Talking about the post-acquisition plans, Amitabh Saran, CEO, Buzzintown, “We have very aggressive plans to expand our geographic footprint, as well as the depth of the content. Buzzintown would continue to exist as a separate portal, focused on entertainment, lifestyle, and leisure options across India and abroad. Buzzintown now has the potential of adding significant value to the huge Yatra audience travelling to or across India.”

Prior to this, Yatra has acquired TSI in 2010 and MagicRooms in 2011. Buzzintown and Yatra are by common investor, Intel Capital. Buzzintown has raised an undisclosed amount from Intel Capital in 2008 and 2009; while, Yatra had recently raised 200 crore in its series B Valiant Capital and existing investors Norwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital in April 2011.

 “Buzzintown becomes the ‘in-destination expert’ for Yatra, as they can now inform their customers about the latest events happening in their destination cities, access event tickets online for them, recommend restaurants to dine or enjoy a night out, arrange visits to iconic places even during business travels. These services help both the holiday and the business traveler alike,” says Saran on Yatra’s interest in Buzzintown.

Prior to founding Buzzintown, Saran was the CTO at TriVium Systems and the Chief Architect at HP. He also worked as the Project manager at NASA, the Technical Lead at Philips, Thailand, and the Systems Analyst at TCS. Saran holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.E., Computer Science from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology. He has also published several technical papers and books on software engineering and distributed systems.