Mafengwo Completes Series D Financing Round[:zh]蚂蜂窝完成1.33亿美元D轮融资

Leading Chinese Independent Travel Service Platform Secures Investment to Accelerate Growth[:zh]将打造全球旅游消费指南

Mafengwo, a leading Chinese independent online travel platform, announced today that it has closed its Series D fundraising round of $133 million. New investors in this fundraising round include General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, Ocean Link, a private equity firm focused on the fast-growing travel and tourism sector in China, Temasek, an investment company headquartered in Singapore, Yuantai Investment, and Hopu. Existing investors including Capital Today, Qiming Venture Partners, and Hillhouse Capital also participated in this latest financing round.

Mafengwo plans to use the newly acquired funds to continue to expand its platform as it aims to reshape the independent travel industry in China. Along these lines, to improve the global travel experience, the company will offer Chinese travelers increased user-generated content, a deepened application of advanced analytics to improve user experience on its platform, and improved travel guides and services.

A popular travel application among Chinese millennials, Mafengwo was founded by Gang Chen and Gang Lv in 2010. Initially an online travel community, Mafengwo has grown to become an independent online travel platform that aggregates user-generated reviews of destinations, hotels, attractions, and local activities to provide trip planning advice to self-guided travelers in China. With its unique business model, focused on providing users with both content and the ability to make travel plans through its platform, Mafengwo has become a trusted resource for Chinese travelers. Thanks to its dedicated user base of millennial users, the company has doubled its growth in travel bookings for services including hotels, transportation, and local activities over the past two years.

Gang Chen, Co-Founder and CEO of Mafengwo, said, “This latest round of capital will allow Mafengwo to further invest in our travel advice, content, and our technology-enabled backend. Furthermore, we plan to upgrade the resources we offer on hotels and destination markets as we continue to leverage the advantages from our diverse community of users whose contributed content drives the success of our platform. I believe that we can lead the evolution of the Chinese online travel industry.”

Gang Lv, Co-Founder and COO of Mafengwo, said, “Mafengwo began as one of China’s largest tourism communities and has since evolved to become an independent online travel service platform that covers over 60,000 travel destinations globally and leverages advanced analytics to provide a unique user experience. Our platform continues to be differentiated due to our community of users, who generate diverse and candid feedback, recommendations, and ideas, and our AI-enabled platform, which makes it easy for our users to find the content and recommendations they need to make travel plans. At Mafengwo, we have a genuine love for travel and thank all of our users for contributing to the success of our platform.”

Mr. Chen added: “It is Mafengwo’s mission to help all travelers plan the travel experiences of their dreams. We believe Mafengwo can become China’s largest travel services platform and the interest from leading global investors in our company underscores our success so far. As long as there are destinations for travelers to visit, there will be services for Mafengwo to provide to improve their experience.”

“Chinese consumers from the younger generation have grown up in the era of mobile internet and prefer to explore the world through independent travel,” said Eric Zhang, Managing Director and Head of China at General Atlantic. “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. We continue to see exciting innovation in mobile internet services and believe that the company is well-positioned for growth as Chinese travelers continue to raise their expectations for quality. We look forward to working closely with the Mafengwo team to continue to provide better travel services to Chinese consumers.”

About Mafengwo

Founded in 2010 by Gang Chen and Gang Lv, Mafengwo is a leading Chinese online independent travel platform. Based in Beijing, Mafengwo was originally an online travel community and has evolved to become a popular travel application among Chinese millennials, providing high-quality travel decision-making information and booking services. Mafengwo aggregates user-generated reviews and opinions of destinations, hotels, attractions, and local activities to provide trip planning advice to independent travelers in China. www.mafengwo.cn.

About General Atlantic

General Atlantic is a leading global growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for growth companies. Established in 1980, General Atlantic combines a collaborative global approach, sector specific expertise, a long-term investment horizon and a deep understanding of growth drivers to partner with great entrepreneurs and management teams to build exceptional businesses worldwide. General Atlantic has more than 110 investment professionals based in New York, Amsterdam, Beijing, Greenwich, Hong Kong, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Shanghai, and Singapore. www.generalatlantic.com

About Ocean Link

Ocean Link is the first independent private equity firm that focuses on the growing travel and tourism sector in China. Founded in 2016, Ocean Link’s team of professionals in Shanghai and Hong Kong, combine investment acumen and industry expertise to identify opportunities along the broad value chain and sub-verticals of the fast-expanding travel and tourism sector. The firm deploys both RMB- and USD-denominated funds as part of its investment strategy. For more information visit www.oceanlp.com

[:zh]中国领先的自由行服务平台蚂蜂窝旅行网今日宣布完成D轮融资,融资金额为1.33亿美元。新一轮融资由鸥翎投资(Ocean Link)、美国泛大西洋资本集团(General Atlantic)、淡马锡、元钛长青基金、厚朴基金共同投资,参与前几轮投资的今日资本、启明资本、高瓴资本继续跟投。据悉,蚂蜂窝将利用新获得的资金,继续扩大旅游攻略在旅游消费决策上的优势,并加强旅游大数据的技术壁垒,帮助旅游行业重塑自由行产业链,为中国旅行者提供效率更高的全球旅游消费指引和服务。

蚂蜂窝由陈罡和吕刚创立,是广受中国年轻一代追捧的旅行网站,提供优质的旅游信息决策及产品预订服务,被誉为中国的旅行圣经。从旅行社区起步,蚂蜂窝已成为中国领先的自由行服务平台。2015年初该公司发布自由行战略以来,逐渐探索出一条与传统OTA(在线旅行社)截然不同的营运模式——基于个性化旅游信息的基础上构建旅行产品交易平台,让垂直优质内容与旅游供应链实现连接。

随着“内容+交易”商业闭环体系的形成,蚂蜂窝在“内容入口”和“决策服务”上优势明显,并连续两年在酒店、交通、当地玩乐等自由行产品交易上实现成倍增长。据预测,2017年该公司总体GMV接近100亿元人民币,成为近两年来中国成长最快的在线旅游公司之一。

蚂蜂窝联合创始人、CEO陈罡表示,蚂蜂窝将利用新注入的资金,继续在旅游攻略和数据开发上加大投入,深耕自由行供应链,扩展酒店、目的地市场资源,建立强大稳定的供应商体系,为消费者提供更优质的旅行消费决策、指引及服务,将蚂蜂窝的流量、内容、用户与大数据优势发挥到极致,引领在线旅游产业的进化。

对于过去三年从社区到平台顺利升级的战略意义,蚂蜂窝联合创始人、COO吕刚诠释称,“从中国最大的旅游社区,到行业领先的大数据公司,再到如今覆盖全球6万余个旅游目的地的自由行服务平台,我们的核心竞争力,来源于结构化的海量UGC、旅游大数据及越来越智能化的交易(服务)平台,更来自于我们对每一位用户及其所贡献内容的尊重,对旅行永不息止的热爱。”

在一封写给内部员工的邮件里,CEO陈罡更进一步阐明了这家在线旅游公司的使命和野心:“实现每一个旅行梦想,是蚂蜂窝的使命。我们相信,蚂蜂窝能够成为中国最大的旅游流量平台,只要有旅行者能到达的目的地,就有蚂蜂窝提供的服务!”

从群强环伺到寡头初立,从疯狂的广告营销战到惨烈的价格战,从线上重金获客到渠道下沉三四线城市,中国在线旅游走过了五年的血雨腥风,因蚂蜂窝在2017的强势崛起,在线旅游第一集团军又迎来新的竞争格局。

据悉,泛大西洋资本、淡马锡等国际资本的注资,也意味着这家中国在线旅游的独角兽企业已得到全球顶级投资者的青睐。

“年轻一代的中国消费者成长于移动互联网时代,更喜欢通过深度的自由行,来探索未知的世界。”泛大西洋资本董事总经理兼中国区负责人张弛表示,“蚂蜂窝深耕在线旅游行业多年,始终坚持以服务用户为中心,积累了大量高质量的原创UGC内容以及良好的用户口碑,并持续进行移动产品创新及交易平台升级,我们十分看好蚂蜂窝服务新一代消费者的潜力,坚定看好中国市场的消费升级和互联网创新,并会持续进行投资,携手行业内最优秀的企业一同成长,为中国的消费者提供更好更优质的服务。”

Media Contacts

Yangshuo Liu[:zh]Yangshuo Liu
Mafengwo[:zh]Mafengwo +86 (10) 8741 2588[:zh]+86 (10) 8741 2588 [email protected][:zh][email protected]