Chinese travel platform Mafengwo secures $133m Series D
Chinese travel services platform Mafengwo has raised $133 million Series D round from new investors including Ocean Link, General Atlantic, Temasek Holdings, Yuantai Investment, and Hopu Investment.
Existing backers Capital Today China Group, Qiming Venture Partners, and Hillhouse Capital also participated. With the new investment, the company plans to expand and improve its online travel advice, user-generated content, and the application of advanced analytics technology.
Mafengwo launched in 2005 as an online travel community, allowing tourists to share their travel experiences. The platform now aggregates user-generated reviews of hotels, attractions, and local activities in over 60,000 destinations, with a view to providing advice to self-guided travelers. Having gained popularity among Chinese millennials, the company also provides booking services covering hotels, transportation, and local activities.
“Chinese consumers from the younger generation have grown up in the era of mobile internet and prefer to explore the world through independent travel,” Eric Zhang, managing director and head of China at General Atlantic, said in a statement. “With several years of experience in the online travel industry, Mafengwo is highly regarded by its users due to its high-quality user-generated content and continuous efforts to enhance its mobile product and transaction platform.”
Capital Today committed $5 million to the company in 2011, while Qiming came into a $15 million Series B round two years later. In 2015, Mafengwo raised a Series C round worth tens of millions of dollars from investors including Coatue Management and Hillhouse.
General Atlantic has been active in Asia since 1999 and has offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Singapore. The firm focuses on five sectors: technology and the internet, financial services, business services, consumer and retail, and healthcare.
Ocean Link, founded in last year, is the first independent PE firm that focuses on the travel and tourism sector in China. It received $400 million in seed capital from the likes of General Atlantic and domestic online travel business Ctrip and now has $500 million in assets under management across renminbi and US dollar-denominated vehicles.
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