Tencent’s corporate venturing unit has come back as a return investor in China-based online travel agency, 17u, also known as TongCheng. The latest series C investment is one of the largest venture rounds to date for China this year, coming in at $82.5m.
Oriza Holdings, also an existing backer (series A) participated in the round with new investor Boyu Capital. The online travel company has reportedly raised over $95m to date. There is also talk of a pending IPO, according to China news reports. Near the time of the latest series C round the company named Zhixiang Wu as its chief executive officer, according to CrunchBase.
The company does not just offer travel services, but also tickets to attractions. It sees a big future in this segment and has since set up a partnership with China online attraction ticket service Yikuaiqu. According to news reports, its attraction services side of the business grew ten times year on year as per its fourth quarter earnings call of 2013.
The company is also listed on Alibaba’s hotel metasearch service Etao, according to online news site, tnooz.com.
Oriza Holdinsg invested a reported $3.5m in a series A round in 2008, which was followed by a $10m series B round in which Tencent invested.