China vacation rental site Tujia acquires VC-backed peer Mayi

Upon completion of the transaction, Mayi will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tujia and its controlling shareholder, 58.com, will have partial ownership of the new entity. Mayi will remain independent in terms of brand, operations and core personnel.

Much like Homeaway and Airbnb, Tujia allows homeowners to post properties that are available as vacation or business rentals. However, it differs from its US counterparts in that there is a property management business bolted on to the platform. It helps maintain and rent out properties, setting the rental prices and splitting the revenue with the landlord.

At present Tujia's website features more than 410,000 apartments covering 329 travel destinations in China and 1,085 overseas destinations.

The platform has raised several substantial funding rounds. Lightspeed China Partners first backed Tujia in late 2011, while Ctrip, HomeAway and CDH Investments participated in a Series A round in early 2012. A second round followed 12 months later, taking the total raised to $64 million.

Tujia received a $100 million Series C round from all existing investors in July 2014 and then a $300 million round led by All-Stars Investments last August, which saw the company's valuation surpass $1 billion.

Short-term room rental site Mayi.com (translated as "ants") attracted $10 million when it spun off from its parent company 58.com in 2013. Investors in the round included VantagePoint, BlueRun Ventures and Sequoia Capital. The platform claimed to have more than 300,000 rooms available in more than 300 Chinese cities.

In the light of slowing smart phone sales growth and a cooling venture capital market, more tech companies are expected to consolidate in order to increase users and revenues and reduce marketing expenditure.

Earlier this year, VC-backed online shopping and social networking platform Mogujie took control of rival Meilishuo.com in a stock-swap deal. This came after mergers between rival online-to-offline (O2O) services platforms Dianping and Meituan and competing ride-hailing app operators Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache. All four companies had received substantial private equity and strategic funding.

China Renaissance acted as a financial advisor to Tujia.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Consumer
• Venture
• Expansion
• China
• TMT
• Venture
• Lightspeed Venture Partners
• GGV Capital
• CDH Investments Management
• All-Star Investments
• Sequoia Capital
• M&A