South Korea’s Yanolja has received a $1.7 billion capital injection from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 to scale its cloud-based travel and leisure platform.
Founded in 2005, Yanolja’s travel “super app” service includes accommodations, leisure, transportation and restaurants. The platform uses technologies including artificial intelligence, IoT, Big Data and blockchain to accelerate digital transformation across the travel industry and claims to be one of the fastest-growing travel sector unicorns in the world.
According to Yanolja, despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the company achieved both net growth and gains in operating profit last year.
With SoftBank’s investment, Yanolja, which is the number-one travel super app in South Korea, will invest in the development of innovative technologies to expand its technology offerings in new markets.
"Powered by AI, we believe Yanolja is a leader in transforming the travel and leisure industry in South Korea through its travel super app approach," says Greg Moon, managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers.
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"We are delighted to partner with Lee Su Jin and the Yanolja team in their quest to expand into new markets and drive further innovation in the travel and leisure industry."
Yanolja first claimed its unicorn status in 2019 following a $180 million investment deal from Booking Holdings and GIC.
At the time, it had secured a total of $242 million in funding, and the deal marked Booking Holdings’ first in South Korea.
Yanolja previously invested in Southeast Asian budget hospitality company ZEN Rooms in both 2018 and 2019.