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Oct. 17 (NBD) -- Beijing-based cross-border travel consumption services provider Ksher recently raised 10 million U.S. dollars in a series A round of financing from Sequoia Capital China.

Established in early 2016, Ksher focuses on cross-border travel-related financial services, providing overseas merchants with solutions concerning payment system, operation, and marketing and sales. Two months ago, the startup launched direct selling businesses related to travel consumption, covering hotels, air tickets, restaurants, shopping, and entertainment, playing a role like Meituan-Dianping in the travel services sector. 

It is Ksher's competence in offline operation and expansion that attracts Sequoia's attention.

It is noticeable that Sequoia has injected lots of capital in the cross-border travel sector within months. The venture capital firm led the investment in cross-border payment platform Airwallex in July and in online travel platform KLOOK in August, indicating there is a "Blue Ocean" in the cross-border travel industry.

This industry boasts a large scale with huge development space in overseas markets, Zhou Bin, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ksher, said to NBD.

Statistics from the Payment & Clearing Association of China show that cross-border internet transactions via third-party payment platforms totaled 320 billion yuan (46.31 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017, an increase of 114.7 percent over the previous year. This implies the enormous demands in the cross-border payment sector.

According to a report on tourism economy released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, China registered 71.31 million outbound visits in the first half of 2018, a year-on-year rise of 15 percent. 

The country records around 120-130 million outbound trips every year, but there are only 70 million passport holders. This means there is great room for growth in the cross-border travel industry, added Zhou Bin.

On this occasion, more and more capital is flowing to the space. Only the second half of 2018 saw cross-border payment entity Pingpang, tourism website Mytour.VIP, Airwallex, and KLOOK complete their financing rounds.

Competition heats up at the same time.

Tourism giants Ctrip and Qunar's overseas businesses are blooming as Tencent and Alibaba steps up efforts in promoting overseas payment services.

In Zhou Bin's opinion, in order to brave the challenges, startups are inclined to cultivate partnership with stronger counterparts to reinforce synergies by combining respective advantages.

Moreover, efforts need to be done to enhance global business expansion and scale management to stand out from the competition, Zhou noted. 

Email: wenqiao@nbd.com.cn