Vietnamese online hotel booking start-up vntrip.vn on Monday said it got US$3 million from a group of foreign investors led by Fenghe Group and Hancock Revocable Trust.

The company told Viet Nam News this is the largest investment by foreign investors in a series A round – financing a startup in the growth stage – in a Vietnamese online startup.

The funding comes less than six months since the website www.vntrip.vn was launched, it added.

The website provides Vietnamese consumers a localised platform to make international hotel bookings by tying up with global leaders like Booking.com and YieldPlanet.

It connects to 6,000 hotels in Viet Nam and 900,000 in the world.

FengHe Group is led by John Wu who began his career in Silicon Valley in the late 1980's and most notably was an angel investor and CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Alibaba.

Scott Hancock has more than 20 years private-equity and early stage investing experience while holding senior positions at Oak Hill Capital, Continuity Capital Partners and Deep Sky Capital.

Both will have board seats to provide guidance and oversight to vntrip.vn's strategy and growth.

The investors said they saw potential in company before deciding to invest.

Scott Hancock said: "It is exciting to be an early­stage investor in vntrip.vn because we can see the opportunity to build the dominant market leader in an industry that will reach nearly $1 billion in revenue within the next 5 years."

Le Dac Lam, co-founder and CEO of vntrip.vn, said "We are extremely pleased to have two renowned firms with proven track records in the technology sector investing in our company and supporting our vision and strategy going forward."

Local­to­local online bookings are estimated to reach US$750 million in revenues by 2020.

After the funding, vntrip.vn is valued at VND300 billion ($13.6 million) by investors.

VNS