Tencent leads $250m round for Chinese travel platform Mafengwo
Chinese travel platform Mafengwo has raised $250 million in a round of funding led by Tencent Holdings.
Other participants include Yuantai Investment Partners Fund, NM Strategic Focus Fund, and eGarden Ventures, as well as existing investors General Atlantic and Qiming Venture Partners, according to a statement.
Mafengwo launched in 2005 as an online travel community, allowing Chinese tourists to share their experiences. The platform gained a following among millennials and 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. It also provides booking services covering hotels, transportation, and activities.
"We are going to recruit more talent and increase the marketing budget in the future, hoping to make the company the largest online travel website and get listed in the next one to two years," said Gang Chen, CEO of Mafengwo.
Capital Today committed $5 million to Mafengwo in 2011, while Qiming came into a $15 million Series B round two years later. In 2015, the company raised a Series C reportedly worth $85 million from investors including Coatue Management and Hillhouse Capital. In 2017, it raised a $133 million Series D from Ocean Link, General Atlantic, Temasek Holdings, Yuantai Investment, Hopu Investment, Qiming, Hillhouse and Capital Today.
Chinese travelers, especially millennials, are seen as increasingly opting for independent travel options instead of escorted tours. Online travel businesses catering to this opportunity set can be roughly divided into two categories: booking-focused sites such as Ctrip and Qunar; and sites that mainly offer travel tips and discussions on destinations such as Mafengwo and Qyer.
Qyer raised three rounds between 2012 to 2016, receiving more than $57 million from TrustBridge Partners, Alibaba Group, Susquehanna Asia Investment, and UTour Group, according to AVCJ research.
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