Softbank's $1.7 Billion Bet on Yanolja Is Largest Investment in a Travel Startup Since Pandemic Began
Skift Take
It's official and improbable. The South Korean startup Yanolja considers itself a triple threat to hotel tech sellers like Oracle Hospitality, online agencies like Hopper, and mid-market hospitality brands like Sonder. Can it really succeed in all three?
SoftBank Group's $30 billion Vision Fund 2 has made a $1.7 billion investment in Yanolja, a travel startup based in South Korea, the companies confirmed on Thursday.
The companies didn't reveal what valuation the investment put on Seoul-based Yanolja, which is an online travel agency, a hotel tech provider, and a hotel operator.
Yanolja had a $1 billion valuation in 2019 when Booking Holdings and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC participated in a $180 million funding round and collectively took an approximately 35 percent to 40 percent stake in Yanolja.
Yanolja said Softbank Vision Fund 2 was "the sole investor the round," suggesting that Softbank had diluted booking Holdings' stake in the company. We couldn't reach a spokesperson for Booking Holdings by our deadline to ask if the company had sold most or all of its shares in Yanolja to Softbank.
Tokyo-based Softbank runs the world's largest venture capital fund. Its Vision Fund 2 raised $30 billion and succeeded an approximately $100 billion Vision Fund that had included money from Saudi Arabia and which invested in Oyo, the hospi
