Mafengwo raise $133 million to lead Chinese online travel industry evolution

Mafengwo, a Chinese independent online travel platform, has announced that it has closed its Series D fundraising round of $133 million. New investors in this fundraising round include General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, Ocean Link, a private equity firm focused on the fast-growing travel and tourism sector in China, Temasek, an investment company headquartered in Singapore, Yuantai Investment, and Hopu. Existing investors including Capital Today, Qiming Venture Partners, and Hillhouse Capital also participated in this latest financing round.

“Chinese consumers from the younger generation have grown up in the era of mobile internet and prefer to explore the world through independent travel,” said Eric Zhang (main picture), managing director and head of China at General Atlantic. “With several years of experience in the online travel industry, Mafengwo is highly regarded by its users due to its high-quality user-generated content and continuous efforts to enhance its mobile product and transaction platform. We continue to see exciting innovation in mobile internet services and believe that the company is well-positioned for growth as Chinese travellers continue to raise their expectations for quality. We look forward to working closely with the Mafengwo team to continue to provide better travel services to Chinese consumers.”

A popular travel application among Chinese millennials

Mafengwo was founded by Gang Chen and Gang Lv in 2010. Initially an online travel community, Mafengwo has grown to become an independent online travel platform that aggregates user-generated reviews of destinations, hotels, attractions, and local activities to provide trip planning advice to self-guided travellers in China. With its unique business model, focused on providing users with both content and the ability to make travel plans through its platform, Mafengwo has become a trusted resource for Chinese travellers. Thanks to its dedicated user base of millennial users, the company has doubled its growth in travel bookings for services including hotels, transportation, and local activities over the past two years.

Gang Chen, co-founder and CEO of Mafengwo, said, “This latest round of capital will allow Mafengwo to further invest in our travel advice, content, and our technology-enabled backend. Furthermore, we plan to upgrade the resources we offer on hotels and destination markets as we continue to leverage the advantages from our diverse community of users whose contributed content drives the success of our platform. I believe that we can lead the evolution of the Chinese online travel industry.”