China's biggest online leisure travel service Tuniu has filed for a $120 million IPO. It is planning to list on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol TOUR.
Tuniu's packaged tour service include organized tours, self-guided tours, and travel-related services for leisure travelers.
The Nanjing-based company will use the fund to expand sales and marketing efforts, strengthen technology and product development activity, strategic investments and acquisitions of complementary businesses.
The recently introduced tourism law in the country that imposes stringent restrictions on travel companies could cause a probable impact for Tuniu's business, claims the company. Also it believes the lack of wide acceptance of online payment systems in China as a challenge.
Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and China Renaissance are the joint bookrunners on this deal.
The company's outbound leisure travel service revenue contributed over 70% of its gross bookings in 2013.
Tuni's net revenue in 2011 was $123 million (net loss: $14.8 million), in 2012 it was $179 million (net loss: $17.2 million), and in 2013 it stood at $313 million (net loss: $12.8 million).
Founded in 2006, the company has sold a total of over three million packaged tours, the major contribution to this number was seen in the recent years - In 2012, about 850,000 trips were sold, and in 2013 about 1.3 million trips were sold.
Tuniu has over 850,000 customer reviews on site, and it sources tour packages from over 3,000 travel suppliers in 70+ countries.
In September 2013, the company raised series D funding of $60 million from investors including Singapore-based Temasek and US-based DCM.
It raised its first major funding round in 2008 from Gobi Partners, the next funding round was led by DCM in 2009, and the series C was from investors including Sequoia in 2011.
In early 2013, Conor Yang joined Tuniu as its chief financial officer, prior to this, Yang worked at Dangdang, an ecommerce company in China.
In October 2013, the country's biggest online travel search service Qunar filed for $125 million IPO on NASDAQ, eventually listing with a trading price of almost double than what the market is said to have expected.