Yanolja CIO says its AI vision played key role in SoftBank investment

Korean travel startup Yanolja’s Chief Investment Officer said that artificial intelligence (AI) was the keyword that played a decisive role in drawing SoftBank Vision Fund’s 2 trillion won ($1.75 billion) investment last month, in an interview with The Korea Economic Daily on Aug. 5.

The startup’s CIO Choi Chan-seok explained that in his final presentation pitch to the SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son, he vividly highlighted how our own smartphones can replace the hotel’s key cards and also control the room condition and devices just as in smart homes.

He added that the Internet of Things (IoT) technology will also enable hotel operators to identify and determine the replacement schedule of bed mattresses and other room supplies. The IoT and smart homes are key areas that Korea’s major firms such as Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. have been focusing lately. Samsung has even set up a top-level meeting last year to strengthen its multi-device IoT experience.

“SoftBank Vision Fund was particularly drawn to our long-term vision and specific attempts to connect AI with travel and leisure. For instance, the cameras installed in the lobby can identify the customers, who can also check-in using unmanned kiosks. The customers can use the passcodes sent to their smartphones to use the elevator and enter their rooms,” said the CIO.

Choi was recruited by Yanolja in February to primarily lead its preparation for public listing. In a press release earlier this year, the company had originally announced that it will push for a local IPO by 2022. But after receiving the investment of $1.75 billion from SoftBank in July, multiple sources reported that Yanolja is now eying for an IPO in the US by 2023.

The $1.75 billion investment marks SoftBank Vision Fund’s second-largest investment in a South Korean company after its 3.35 trillion won ($2.93 billion) investment in Coupang.

“The global travel and accommodation industry is growing rapidly into a $2.5 trillion market, but the majority of the hotels worldwide still operate their businesses with heavy reliance on copy and fax machines. There is a large room for a tech-driven company like us to innovate the whole industry,” added Choi.

Yanolja has been expanding its global presence in the business of hotel booking management systems with its cloud-based solutions. Its booking management service adopts a subscription-based model that generates sales from the subscribers on a monthly basis. Yanolja added that its service is gaining popularity among hotels in Africa, where the adoption of computer technologies in booking was later than in other parts of the world.                                                     
“Unlike Airbnb that adopts a travel agent’s business model that makes earnings from commissions, Yanolja aims to be a comprehensive travel and leisure platform that connects different players of all relevant industries to create new values based on the data that they accumulated,” said Choi.

Yanolja also added that prior to its IPO, it will aggressively participate in the M&A market to acquire firms that can create synergies. Yanolja has recently entered the race to acquire South Korea’s online retail platform Interpark Corp. The startup had also considered the acquisition of the country’s second-largest food delivery platform Yogiyo but pulled out to set up its own service instead.

“We had considered the acquisition as we could benefit from the immense data on restaurants held by Yogiyo, but decided to launch our own restaurant booking service. We will also create further synergies through M&As in the leisure and shopping industries,” said the CIO.  

Write to Ye-jin Jun at ace@hankyung.com
Daniel Cho edited this article.