Baidu-Backed Travel Site Qunar Reportedly Gets $57 Million Funding Round

Chinese search engine Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) invested $306 million in Qunar back in the summer of 2011 to take a majority stake in the travel e-commerce site. Today Qunar is reported to have secured a new funding round worth $57 million with backing from Baidu, Hillhouse Capital, and GGV Capital.

TechCrunch notes (via First Financial Daily) that the newest $57 million investment was finalized last month but has not yet been confirmed by Baidu. Today’s round effectively values Qunar at about $483 million.

Qunar is one of a number of high-profile Chinese web companies thought to be building towards a US IPO sometime this year having previously vowed to go public as soon as “the market stabilizes.”

(Also read – Qunar: Success in China, with an Eye to Indonesia)China’s top travel e-commerce site is Ctrip (NASDAQ:CTRP), chased hard by Tencent-invested eLong (NASDAQ:LONG). Qunar is aiming to rake in $160 million in revenue this year. In contrast, Ctrip brought in $668 million in net revenues in 2012.