Gobi Ventures To Indonesia With Deal A Lot Like Tuniu In China

Gobi Partners has broadened its reach with a $1 million Series A investment in Indonesia’s tour marketplace TripVisto. What’s most interesting about this deal is that it’s a direct reflection of the venture firm’s much earlier backing of China’s Tuniu, one of China’s tour package providers.

Thomas Tsao, Gobi managing partner, says TripVisto shares many of the same positive qualities with Tuniu, and that lessons learned from the Chinese startup will be applied to the Indonesia market.

TripVisto, founded in August 2014 by telecom and digital media exec Bernardus Sumartok (pictured), was initially seeded by Singapore-based East Ventures. The new funds will be allocated toward expanding the startup’s inventory of tour packages, hiring more staff and increasing marketing and advertising efforts.

As Southeast Asia’s most populous nation with an emerging middle class, travel services such as TripVisto should scale. Indonesia travelers are increasingly looking for competitively priced tour packages for popular international and domestic destinations, and  TripVisto offers packages to 50 countries and 157 cities.