Russian business daily Kommersant reported from unnamed sources on Friday that VTB Capital has taken part in a $10 million investment round in Oktogo.ru, a leading Russian online hotel booking startup. VTB Capital and Oktogo declined to comment, but the fact that VTB took part in the round was confirmed to East-West Digital News by a source close to the deal.
Founded in 2010, Oktogo now shows daily traffic reaching 18,000 users on average and up to 25,000 on peak days, Oktogo told EWDN. Revenues reached $10 million in 2011 and the startup expects to triple them in 2012.
In November 2010, Oktogo closed its first round of financing with the so-called “SuperAngels” Toivo Annus (founding engineer of Skype), Fabrice Grinda (co-founder of OLX), Jose Marin and Javier Perez-Tenessa. In April 2011 the startup closed a $5 million round with Western funds Ventech and Mangrove Capital Partners and Russian fund ABRT.
A competitor of Oktogo, Ostrovok.ru, attracted a whopping $13.6 million from Western investors in its Series A round in July 2011, then an undisclosed amount in its latest round last month. Another strong player, Ozon Travel, is the specialized arm of leading Russian e-commerce player Ozon.ru.
VTB Capital is the investment arm of VTB Group, a leading Russian state controlled financial group with offices in Moscow, London, Singapore and Dubai. The fund focuses on IT, Internet projects, industrial innovations, nanotechnology, and energy-efficient technology, mainly at startup stages.
VTB Capital owns stakes in Russian as well as foreign companies, including: Russian Navigation Technologies (RNT), the largest manufacturer and integrator of telematics systems in Russia; Questora, a company with offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Saratov that operates worldwide in the field of highly scalable software platforms; Returnil, an international provider of security solutions; and Beau Laboratories, a developer of innovative 3D software.
Last year, VTB Capital invested in COMDI, a leading player on the Russian video conference market, and AiHit, a London based provider of company data to the business information, market research and lead generation industries.
Updated March 21, 2012
