Earlier this month Vostok New Ventures, an invesment company listed on Nasdaq Stockholm (formerly known as Vostok Nafta Investment), has injected an additional $2.5 million in Moscow-based online travel agency Onetwotrip.com. This transaction was announced in the company’s H1 2016 activity report, which was published last week.
The Swedish fund had already invested $4 million in the Russian OTA in the third quarter of 2015. Among its other portfolio companies are Avito.ru, Russia’s leading online classifieds company and Yell.ru, an online local search utility, as well as BlaBlaCar, Delivery Hero and Gett.
Onetwotrip launched in 2011 with pioneering features. These included an intelligent search system of prices, flight options and routes; statistics of the flight delays for every particular destination/airline; information on airplane model and age as well as on distances between the seats.
In 2012, the startup raised $9 million from Phenomen Ventures, a fund with Russian roots, and $16 million from Atomico. The UK fund hailed the site as “the most efficient, elegant and innovative travel service not only in Russia, but anywhere in the world.”
In early 2015, Goldman Sachs invested $8 million in the company. An investor with knowledge of the company told the Russian media that Onetwotrip’s valuation at that time amounted to “several hundreds of million dollars.”
Onetwotrip started international expansion in 2013, after acquiring US hotel booking startup DealAngel. That same year, its founder Peter Kutis announced IPO plans “for 2014,” but market slowdown and deteriorated international climate obviously prevented him to reach this goal.
Last year Maxim Sokolov replaced Kurtis as CEO.
The company, which initially focused on flight booking, has diversified its offer toward hotel booking, car rentals, and train ticket booking. Its services are now available globally in English, German, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian languages, both online and via mobile apps.
