Baidu’s travel site Qunar raises $167 million on US IPO debut, sees stock price nearly double

Baidu-owned travel booking site Qunar (NASDAQ:QUNR) raised $167 million on its US IPO debut on Friday. Qunar priced higher than expected – the aim was to raise $125 million – and hit the tickers at $15 per share before surging strongly.

Qunar ended Friday’s trading at $28.40, nearly double its entry price.

Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) invested $306 million in Qunar in June 2011 to take a majority stake.

Qunar is targeting $160 million in revenue for this year, boosted by growing mobile usage of its apps. But the company’s F-1 filing with the SEC points out that it made a loss of $2.8 million in H1 2013 on the back of $58.5 million in sales. The market leader in this segment in China is Ctrip (NASDAQ:CTRP).