Another week, another encouraging sign that money is continuing to flow into up and coming travel brands with Russian online travel agency Oktogo raising $10 million this week.
The hotel-focused OTA has raised the money from VTB Capital, the investment arm of one of Russia’s largest banks, VTB, bringing the total amount of investment made in Oktogo so far to $15 million.
Joining in the round include existing investors in Oktogo, Mangrove Capital Partners, Ventech Capital and ABRT.
Oktogo currently has over 2,500 hotels on its system from Russia and the CIS, and is one of a number of home-grown travel companies making headway in the region.
The company says the investment will go towards bolstering the portfolio of properties closer to the 10,000 mark, giving almost every hotel in the region a presence on the service, it claims.
Founder and CEO Marina Kolesnik says:
"Even with triple digit annual growth, our market in Russia is still predominantly offline. The new capital will allow us to bring a new standard of travel to the Russian mass market traveller and new way of managing business to the traditional Russian hotelier."
The Russian sector is estimated to be worth around $60 billion in 2011, according to Kolesnik at a recent conference, and is expected to double over the course of the next five to ten year.
However, online only accounts for around 10% ($6.2 billion) of activity, but this is also predicted to double within just the space of a year as changing consumer behaviour, improved infrastructure and investment is beginning to fuel growth in the market.
To coincide with the funding news, PhoCusWright founder and chairman Philip Wolf is to join the business as an independent director.
Other industry figures advising (and also investing in) the business include Javier Perez-Tenessa (founder and CEO of Odigeo and eDreams), Fabrice Grinda (founder of OLX), and Jose Marin (founder of IG Expansion).
The investment in Oktogo is Ventech's second injection of capital in the travel industry in the space of a week, being part of a trio of companies which last week handedInbed.me $1.2 million as part of a seed round.