Chinese Airbnb rival Tujia raises $300M round at $1.5B valuation led by online travel giant Ctrip.com and All-Stars Investment
Context & Ripple Effects
This is Tujia's second $300M raise in just over two years — its 2015 round at over a $1B valuation was also led by All-Stars Investment, which is back again, this time joined by Ctrip.com as a strategic lead. The step-up to $1.5B lands months after Airbnb committed to tripling its China workforce and doubling local investment under its Aibiying rebrand and Alipay/WeChat integrations.
Ctrip's involvement matters beyond the check: it has been buying distribution across Asian travel, including its $180M stake in India's MakeMyTrip, so backing Tujia extends an OTA-led pattern of shaping China's home-sharing market through equity rather than building it directly.
First-order effects
- Tujia gains both fresh capital and a distribution partner — Ctrip's booking funnel becomes a channel for Tujia listings, deepening the incumbent-OTA alliance against Airbnb's localized push.
- All-Stars Investment doubles down on its existing position, signaling conviction at a 50% markup over its 2015 entry rather than a new bet.
Second-order effects
- Rival Xiaozhu follows the same playbook within weeks, raising $120M from Jack Ma-backed Yunfeng Capital — Chinese home-sharing startups are now funded by domestic strategic money while Airbnb funds its own localization.
- Airbnb faces a two-front problem: locally capitalized competitors with OTA distribution, forcing continued escalation of its China-specific investment beyond the workforce and integration commitments already announced.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, China's home-sharing market consolidates around OTA-aligned platforms backed by strategic investors, structurally walling off the segment from global entrants regardless of brand strength.
- The recurring $300M-round cadence across Tujia and Xiaozhu points toward a market where scale of domestic capital, not product differentiation, decides which platforms survive.
The trend: China's home-sharing sector is being capitalized into an OTA-aligned oligopoly, with domestic strategic investors out-funding Airbnb's localization effort.