HANOI, Vietnam, May 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Luxstay has just completed their bridge round of funding with the participation of two new investors from Korea: GS Home Shopping (GS Shop) and Bon Angels. This US$4.5 million deal marks a substantial early stage investment for a Vietnamese tech startup.
In early 2017, Steven Nguyen founded Luxstay - a home-sharing platform targeting the Southeast Asia market, currently operating in Vietnam. As well as GS Shop and Bon Angels, other top tier venture capital investors such as CyberAgent Venture (Japan), Genesia Ventures (Japan), ESP Capital (Singapore), Founders Capital (Singapore) and Nextrans (Korea) have also invested in Luxstay.
According to statistics from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Vietnam served about 80 million domestic and 15.6 million foreign tourists in 2018. In particular, there were 3.5 million Korean tourists, with a growth rate of 44% since 2017 - the fastest ever, while the overall growth rate of foreign visitors is 20% yearly. Total spending for tourism in 2018 amounted to US$25 billion, of which the accommodation sector accounted for 28%, equivalent to about 7 billion USD and expected to increase to US$13 billion by 2025. Vietnam is among the fastest-growing countries in the travel industry and the Vietnamese government strongly encourages the tourism sector to become a key economic sector in the next 5 years with government support and promotion policies.
With an abundant supply from the real estate market, apartments and villa projects have been launching and thriving rapidly in Vietnam. While the market of home-sharing is still fairly new in Vietnam, the revenue from these short-term rental activities in 2018 amounts to over US$100 million (according to Statista reports), which signifies substantial growth yet is quite moderate compared to the total accommodation market of US$7 billion. In developed countries, home-sharing accounts for 10-20% of the home-rental market. This shows a huge opportunity for this industry in Vietnam, which is expected to reach US$2-4 billion in 2025.
Luxstay differentiates itself from other travel agency platforms by focusing on premium products and domestic tourists as well as by collaborating with local partners in other countries with a large number of inbound tourists, such as Korea and Japan. This is also a differentiator between Luxstay and Airbnb, which applies a global strategy rather than a local one. In order to help business partners and homeowners save time and effort, Luxstay has professional team members to support them in operating and managing real estate assets.
GS Home Shopping, ("GS Shop", KOSDAQ:028150), part of the GS Group, is Korea's foremost multimedia retailer as well as a global leader in TV home shopping. Its Corporate Venture Capital arm is a global strategic investor, investing through fund as well as direct investments.
BonAngels is an influential venture capital fund that focuses on investing in early-stage companies startups in Korea such as Woowa Brothers, Daily Hotels, My Real Trip. These investors will be important connections for Luxstay to other strategic partners and investors in Korea to implement the company's ambition and expand its scale.
After more than 2 years of development, Luxstay is growing quickly, aiming at an annual turnover of over US$300 million in 2023, accounting for about 30 percent of the market share. Luxstay is in the process of working with financial investors and strategic partners to deploy the next round of capital, looking raise their Series A in 2019.
ABOUT LUXSTAY CORPORATION
CEO: Steven Nguyen
Website: www.luxstay.com
Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/luxstay/
Mobile app: Luxstay (IOS / Android)
ABOUT GS HOME SHOPPING INC.
Headquarters: Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, Korea
CEO: Huh Tae-soo
Established: December 23, 1994.
Website: https://www.gsshop.com
ABOUT BON ANGELS VENTURE PARTNERS
Headquarters: Seoul, Korea
General Partner / CEO: Simon Kang
Established: 2006.
Website: http://bonangels.net/
Crunchbase: BonAngels
Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20190522/2474841-1-a
Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20190522/2474841-1-b
