[NEWS] Korean hotel platform Yanolja raises $180M at a valuation of over $1B – Loganspace

The dawdle tech industry has got one other unicorn. Following the likes ofAirbnb,OYO,TravelokaandKlook, Korea’s Yanolja mentioned in the present day it has closed a $180 million Series D spherical that takes it valuation beyond $1 billion.

The investment is led by GIC, a Singapore sovereign wealth fund, andReserving Holdings,the U.S. firm in the support of dawdle products and companies corresponding toReserving.com,Agoda.com and more. The company had previously raised spherical $60 million,in preserving with Crunchbase recordsdata. In 2017,Bloomberg reportedthat its valuation was as soon as over $500 million.

Yanoljais finest known for reinventing the belief that of enjoy hotels in Korea — turning them from seedy locations into stunning non permanent apartment alternate choices for younger contributors and travelers. Based by a worn hotel worker, Lee Su-jin, it started out as an promoting platform for enjoy hotels before adding its possess app-basically basically based booking carrier.

On the present time it claims more than 200 hotels in Korea and it has expanded overseas. Remaining one year, it strucka deal to invest $15 million into Zen Rooms, a Rocket Web-backed budget hotel community, in what might well well well maybe eventually transform an acquisition. Now, it is spreading its wings by a partnership with Agoda, the hotel booking platform owned by Reserving.

Yanolja stepped into Southeast Asia final one year after it invested $15 million into Zenrooms

There are completely parallels between Yanolja andOYO,the India company that has reformed unorganized runt hotels by introducing minimum requirements and a community enact for firms. OYO has received the backing ofSoftBank’sImaginative and prescient Fund,elevating $1 billion final one year, whereasAirbnb is additionally an investor.

Flushed with money, the Indian company has expanded into China, where it claims to be the nation’s 2d-greatest hotel chain, Southeast Asia and, most recently, Europe bythe $415 million acquisition of Leisure Community from Axel Springer.

Fancy OYO, Yanolja is reckoning on going overseas to make its commercial.

“We’re very alive to to head global,”CEO Kim Jong-yoon told Reuters in an interviewfollowing the unusual financing.

Going public is additionally a priority. Bloomberg reported support in 2017 that the wheels maintain been in motion, however things maintain taken longer. Kim told Reuters that 2022 is the tough timeframe for an IPO, presumably, which suggests the corporate will give its world expansion blueprint to likelihood to scurry first.

Easy, its yell completely reveals skill.

Yanolja mentioned that its earnings has grown an annual rate of over 70% over the last five years. Reuters added that earnings final one year reached 188.5 billion KRW ($160 million) — that’s nearly double the outdated one year however the corporate is no longer a success but.