The Hamburg-based startup Dreamlines announced yesterday it secured 20 million euros in C Round financing from an international pool of investors led by Target Ventures. Also participating in the round was Altpoint Ventures, a US-based fund launched this past September, as well as previous Dreamlines investors Holtzbrinck Ventures, Hasso Plattner Ventures and Dimaventures. Another earlier investor, Ukraine’s TA Venture, did not participate in the round.
Launched in January 2012, Dreamlines has asserted itself as one of the most important providers of cruises on the German market. Travellers can choose from more than 30,000 products, from short cruises to around-the-world and transatlantic cruises.
The startup currently has 280 employees worldwide. In addition to the German-speaking market, the company also operates in Australia, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Brazil and Russia – where it claims to hold the fastest growing cruise OTA.
The company claims to have processed nearly 100 million euros last year. In August 2014, Dreamlines acquired Down Under, another important cruise portal.
The German startup has expanded its activities to several countries across the globe, including Australia.
Target Ventures sees in the cruise market “one of the last prospective niches of the online travel market,” as said by fund partner Anton Terekhov.
“We are entering into business with Dreamlines at a time when, on the one hand, the balance of sales has moved to online channels, and on the other hand, the food chain of ‘Cruise Company – GDS – Consolidator – OTA’ is still unsettled. The niche of GDS on the cruise market is still not yet fully occupied, with cruise companies often suffering from a lack of IT tools. This all means now is the right time for entering this market,” Terekhov explained.
Target Ventures was launched in 2013 for investment in the digital consumer space. Its backers are “private Russian individuals who wish to invest in Europe in order to diversify their investment portfolio,” said the fund’s Managing Partner Mikhail Lobanov in an exchange with East-West Digital News.
“We led the Dreamlines round with almost half of the 20-million-euro capital injection. This is our third deal in Europe this year, following Delivery Hero and Achica.com,” Lobanov added.
Target Ventures has also invested in Russia: it has stakes in Eventbrite clone TimePad, online retailer Babadu.ru and online confectionary shop MixVille.ru.
