China’s National SMEs Development Fund teamed up with China Merchants Capital Investment to inject RMB120 million ($17 million) in series B+ round in a fast-growing hotel searching and booking platform Haoqiao.cn, according to Deal Street Asia.
This is the National SMEs Development Fund’s second investment in the online travel services space, following its investment last month in Meiya, an online flight ticket search and travel-management platform. Haoqiao, set up in 2013, currently features 550,000 international hotels in 2,000 cities worldwide on its platform. It claims that it generated the revenue of $130 million last year, rising from $26 million in 2015.
“The booking of international hotels (in China) is facing major challenges, including the lack of price transparency, limited channels and limited ability to connect resources within the system,” said Shi Xin, VP at the national SME development fund. “Haoqiao.cn increases the docking efficiency of upstream and downstream resources, lowers costs and enhances customer experience.”