Global Founders Capital, the corporate venturing arm of Rocket Internet and backed by the Samwer brothers, has made its first investment in Asia. The venturing arm has invested an undisclosed amount into a series A round of funding for Traveloka.com, a flight booking website based in Jakarta, Indonesia. The money will be allocated to speed up growth by hiring new talent and adding new services to its site, such as hotel and holiday packages.
Global Founders Capital was attracted to Traveloka.com because it has achieved firm growth and showed solid technical and industry know-how. It ranks as Indonesia’s most used flight and booking service outside the official airline websites, according to internet analytics research company, comScore. Launched only in September 2012, the website has experienced impressive growth, claiming just a month after its launch 400,000 flight searches from users in 200 different cities. The website is now seeing those user numbers and search numbers across just a couple days.
“We don’t only provide best flight deals,” said Ferry Unardi, Managing Director of Traveloka.com. He continued, “The combination of our simple, instructive and compelling transactional interface is none to be found elsewhere. In the booking process, users learn to plan their travel smarter and hence more effective.”
Global Founders Capital was started by the Rocket Internet’s Samwer brothers, the entrepreneurs behind internet companies such as Zalando, Zalora and Delivery Hero.