Former Alibaba leader invests $3 million in Vietnamese startup

An online hotel booking app has just received $3 million in funding in its first round of funding.

John Wu is an investor and technology pillar of Alibaba for nearly 10 years. This former CTO leads a group of investors who have just poured nearly 3 million USD into Vntrip.vn - a Vietnamese startup operating in the field of online hotel booking.

Mr. Le Dac Lam, founder and CEO of this Vietnamese startup, confirmed the information. "The investment appeared in the first round of capital calling from foreign investment funds, and the John Wu investor group agreed to join us," Mr. Lam said.

A Vietnamese startup operating in the field of online hotel booking has just received an investment of 3 million USD.

This money will contribute to expanding the service of providing free car pick-up from the airport to the hotel for all customers who book rooms through the company's online system. In addition, the company will use a part of it for hotel room subsidy programs, giving free nights to its members.

“After the first round of capital raising, we continued to invest in improving customer care services and promoting the application more widely. Raising capital from investors like John Wu was a motivation, but also a huge pressure to use this money most effectively to develop the company," Mr. Le Dac Lam shared.

With the first round of capital calling, the Vietnamese startup was valued at nearly 300 billion VND by John Wu's F&H fund.

Established in late 2014, Vntrip.vn established a wide-ranging online hotel network across Vietnam through a partnership with Booking.com, the world's largest hotel booking system owned by the US Priceline Group with a market capitalization of over 65 billion USD. With the first round of capital raising, the company was valued at nearly 300 billion VND by John Wu's F&H fund.

Currently, Vntrip.vn's system connects online to more than 6,000 Vietnamese hotels and nearly 900,000 international hotels. Customers can book and pay online directly on the website or via the booking application on Android, iOS.

John Wu was honored as “China Angel Investor of the Year 2014”. He has nearly 20 years of technical and management experience in technology companies, and is one of the influential names in technology development not only in China but also around the world.

According to VNE