Local travel startup Yikuaiqu (“一块去”) has gained regulatory approval to list on the New Third Board, officially known as the National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ), according to the approval letter issued by NEEQ.
The Changzhou-based startup will be the first company of its kind to be listed on the New Third Board. NEEQ’s public information about the company indicates that Yikuaiqu was founded in July 2012 and completed its capital restructuring in November 2015. Operating revenue of the company grew robustly, at 1502.20% YoY in 2014 and 966.20% in the first eight months of 2015 compared to that of the full-year of 2014.
The company has so far received three rounds of funding, including the angel round in December 2012, the series A round funding led by Shenzhen HTI Group (“深圳高新投”) in April 2014, and the A+ round with RMB 25 million led by Shenzhen HTI Group and joined by CDF-Capital (“创东方”) in August 2015.
Founder and CEO of the startup Zuozhi Chen expected that growth in this year would be even higher than the average of 1000% annual growth rate in previous years, and the company strives to become profitable within three years by forging a smart travel platform.
The prospect for small startups in the local travel segment has been deemed by many investors as gloomy as dominant OTAs such as Ctrip and Tongcheng are setting up their own local travel business units. Forerunner and short-haul travel operator Yaochufa (“要出发”) received a strategic investment from UTour in 2015, and weekend travel platform Tripzm (“度周末”) fully acquired leisure travel site Meizhouliu (“美周六”), while Shanghai-based O2O player wanzhoumo.com (“周末去哪儿”) has to explore new ways for business due to a lack of funding. (Translated by Jerry)
