Some signs of consolidation in the burgeoning online travel sector in Russia as the heavily-backed Oktogo snaps up the 15-year-old review site Travel.ru.
The deal is undisclosed officially, but those familiar with the deal claim it is in the region of $2 million.
The hotel booking site, which has attracted some $26 million in funding in its reasonably short, four-year history, says its combined traffic with Travel.ru will be around three million monthly unique visitors.
This, it reckons, will make it the "largest online travel destination for Russian travelers".
More good times are still on the horizon, it appears, with market research firm PhoCusWright estimating the Russian online travel market will exceed $10 billion this year, a jump of over 40% from the previous year.
Still, Oktogo earned a mere $30 million of that pie in 2012. As Tnooz has previously reported, the company forecasts that its gross bookings will more than treble this year to $100 million.
Travel.ru is a content-heavy platform featuring both original and user generated content, mostly reviews of trips and hotels.
The marriage of Oktogo and Travel.ru will see content and product streaming in both directions, says says Marina Kolesnik, co-founder and CEO of Oktogo.
Venture capital firms participating in the last round - a sizeable $11 million - included VTB Capital, Mangrove Capital Partners and Ventech, while the angel investors were Javier Perez-Tenessa, Fabrice Grinda, and Jose Marin.
Philip Wolf, founder of PhoCusWright and an Oktogo board director, says:
"Considering the pace of recent change -- Priceline acquiring Kayak, Travelocity becoming an Expedia affiliate, TripAdvisor launching hotel meta-search -- this new seamless experience that will engage customers throughout the entire travel decision-making cycle will be a welcome addition to the online travel marketplace."