Travel platform Yanolja raises $180M, bringing it to $1Bn in valuation

Yanolja has raised $180 million in a Series D funding led by GIC and Booking Holdings which brings its current valuation to an impressive $1 billion. The South Korean online travel platform will use the capital to continue innovating its hospitality-related technology to automate hotel operations and develop a more extensive connection between its value chain.

A portion of the newly raised funds will also be deployed to accelerate digitalization and achieve growth potential in the global travel and leisure market, going beyond the traditional travel sphere.

In conjunction with the funding, Yanolja also announced a strategic partnership and commercial agreement with Booking Holdings. With the partnership, Booking Holdings’ brand Agoda will have the ability to offer its customers Yanolja’s unique hotel accommodations in South Korea, and Yanolja customers will be able to book accommodations across the globe powered by Agoda and other Booking Holdings’ brands.

Founded in 2005 by Lee Sujin, Yanolja is Korea’s number one leisure platform that goes beyond reservations for domestic accommodation and leisure activities and includes reservations for accommodation around the world. It has incorporated new technologies such as AI, IoT and VR into traditional lodging and leisure industries for the first time in Korea, and is actively stepping up efforts to tap into overseas market. Yanolja plans to continue to introduce a solution that enables users to enjoy leisure most efficiently and conveniently in order to realize its brand mission of “making everyone feel comfortable” and complete a more advanced global leisure platform.

Yanolja is the market leader in Korea’s accommodation and leisure industry, given the company’s acute understanding and use of cutting-edge digital technologies, and global expansion plans. In particular, the company has demonstrated accelerating sales growth at an annual rate of more than 70% over the past five years..

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