Deep Kalra was born in Hyderabad and grew up in Delhi and Ahmedabad. He studied economics at St. Stephen's College and management at IIM Ahmedabad. He worked at ABN AMRO and AMF, and joined GE Capital in 1999.
He founded MakeMyTrip in 2000 for Indians in the US who wanted to travel to India. eVentures invested $2 million for about two-thirds of the company and later wanted out. Kalra bought the stake back for about Rs 40 lakh.
After the buyback there was cash for about two months. The team was cut from about 42 to 24 and Kalra took no salary. Rajesh Magow, Keyur Joshi and Sachin Bhatia later became co-founders. India operations began in 2005.
MakeMyTrip listed on Nasdaq on 17 September 2010 and raised about $80.5 million. It merged with Ibibo, owner of Goibibo and redBus, in 2016, and Ctrip agreed to invest $180 million. In 2022 Kalra became group chairman and chief mentor. For FY26 the company reported revenue of $1.04 billion and net profit of $51.8 million.