Moscow-based online flight ticket retailer Onetwotrip.com, one of the fastest growing startups on the Russian scene, has fully acquired DealAngel, a startup that has developed an advanced hotel booking technology.
The news, revealed earlier this week by the Russian business daily Vedmosti, was confirmed to East-West Digital News by Onetwotrip’s founder and CEO Peter Kutis.
DealAngel’s valuation was reported by Vedomosti’s sources to be between “$12 to $15 million”, which has been implicitly confirmed by Bright Capital.
While the acquisition is believed to be a part of Onetwotrip’s international expansion strategy, Kutis denied Vedomosti’s assertion that it came as a consequence of Onetwotrip’s difficulties in developing its own hotel booking technology. “We already have our own system, 99.99% ready. I think we’ll start using it in a matter of weeks,” he told EWDN.
Launched in the US in 2011 by Roman Peskin and Bob Rogers, DealAngel has developed “sophisticated pricing analytics to surface the real deals,” initially targeting hotel owners in a B2B approach.
The startup attracted investment from two Russian funds – $1.3 million in total according to Vedomosti. After a first capital injection from Foresight Ventures at the seed stage, DealAngel received additional funding from Bright Capital Digital in May 2012.
“When we joined Foresight Ventures in the second investment round, the company had already [switched to a B2C strategy]. We are glad that this change has paid off in healthy investment returns in such a short period,” commented Gleb Kaplun of Bright Capital Digital.
DealAngel also benefited from an acceleration program at TechStars in Boulder, Colorado.
