South Korea's Travel App Yanolja Backed by Booking Holdings Invests in Data Startup Ahead of IPO
Skift Take
Yanolja may seek a $4 billion valuation in its planned IPO next year. Its investment in Triple underscores its ambition to go beyond South Korea and become a global superapp and a hotel services provider.
Yanolja, South Korea's travel startup unicorn, has invested $9 million (10 billion Korean won) in Triple, a travel data services startup. The move announced this month came just a couple of weeks after Yanolja, backed by Booking Holdings, announced its plan to list on the public markets in 2021.
"The IPO will be an important process for our company's goals to transform into a global hospitality solution provider and a super app for leisure," a spokesperson said. "We hope to use the IPO as an opportunity to diversify its business by investing in cloud services and expanding further into global markets. In addition, Yanolja plans to actively invest in R&D to evolve into a 'global leisure super app.'"
When Booking Holdings joined GIC and other investors in a $180 million Series D round in 2019, Yanloja was valued at over more than $1 billion (1 trillion won) and recognized as a unicorn. South Korea's largest newspaper Chosun Ilbo has quoted industry sources as placing an approximately $4 b
