Bingdian Hotels App Lands USD Multi-mln Funding
Technode, 9/25/12
Duotu Network Technology, the Shanghai International Travel Agency subsidiary which developed the Bingdian Hotels mobile booking app http://hotelcool.diandian.com/, has received a USD multi-mln series-A round of funding from California-based VC firm Bluerun Ventures. The investment will be used for R&D purposes and to expand Bingdian's offline resources.
The Bingdian Hotels app has two main features: the first is membership packages. Customers can use the app to become members of Bingdian and its partner hotels (or store their previously existing membership cards in the app) and use their user member ID numbers to book hotels. The second feature is a "name your own price" service, similar to Priceline, which uses a customer-to-business (C2B) model that allows customers to set a price for a hotel room and lets competing hotels bid for their business.
Currently, the Bingdian development team has split up these two features and launched them as two separate apps. One app features a "Bingdian Hotels Price" C2B model catering to individual users. Bingdian hopes the app can provide users with the lowest prices for high-end hotels. An iOS version of this app has already been released in advance of China's National Day holiday, which falls each year during the first week of October. The other app has a "Bingdian Hotels 2.0" membership package model catering to business travelers. It will be launched in October and support membership cards from mainstream hotels.
Bingdian says it has seen half a million downloads of its iOS app in the first 150 days after launching in March this year. The Bingdian Hotels app has been among the 20 most downloaded apps in the iTunes app store and was the number one downloaded app in the iTunes Travel app section for over a week.
Editor's Note: Shanghai-based Duotu Network Technology was established in April this year.
Keywords: mobile travel mobile application Bingdian Duotu Shanghai International Travel Agency hotel funding wireless VC mobile booking BlueRun mobile ticketing first-round
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