OneTwoTrip, the Russian travel booking website operating in Russia, Europe and CIS, has secured $4 million in fresh funding from Vostok New Ventures. The deal was disclosed in the nine-months report of the Swedish fund.
Launched in 2011, the startup offers online booking of flight tickets and hotels. The startup raised $25 million in two rounds from Phenomenon Ventures and Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström’s VC firm Atomico. It is also said to be backed by venture capitalists Hovhannes Poghosyan and Dmitry Falkovich.
In late 2014, the company reportedly raised an additional $8 million round from Goldman Sachs.
OneTwoTrip declined to disclose the valuation of the company after the latest round. In 2012, the startup raised $9 million from Phenomenon Ventures with a rumoured valuation of $70 million.
Vostok New Ventures (formely Vostok Nafta) has also recently backed the Pakistanian online real estate database Zameen.com with $9 million and the French ride-sharing company BlaBlaCar in a $200 million round.
OneTwoTrip competes in Russia with local players like Anywayanyday and Biletix. According to the latest research by Data Insight, a Russian analytical agency, the e-travel market in Russia reached a volume of $11.2 billion in 2014. It grew by 24% year-over-year.
However, OneTwoTrip, if we are to believe SimilarWeb, faces a decline in traffic. The number of monthly visits to onetwotrip.com fell from 1.5 million in May to 880,000 in October.
Its competitor, Anywayanyday, according to its spokesperson Eugene Shuhlin, has seen an increase in traffic to the site after they added new channels of engagement. He declined to disclose actual figures “to avoid speculations”.
According to SimilarWeb, the number of monthly visits to Anywayanyday.com sharply grew from 750,000 in September to 3.8 million in October. Biletix CEO Alexander Sizintsev said they have witnessed a 6% year-over-year increase in sales in November, but he did not disclose absolute figures either.
In its initial version, this story first appeared in Tech.eu, a syndication partner of East-West Digital News. The present version contains additional elements from EWDN.
