The startup that raised the most capital in Shark Tank history
Up to now, Luxstay is the startup that has raised the most investment capital in the Shark Tank program. Appearing in season 3 in 2019, this platform connecting homeowners and short-term renters (homestay model) successfully raised 6 million USD from shark Nguyen Thanh Viet (Chairman of the Board of Directors of Intracom Group), shark Pham Thanh Hung (Vice Chairman of Cengroup), shark Nguyen Ngoc Thuy (Chairman of Egroup).
Before joining this program, Luxstay had already caught the eye of investment funds. In 2017, the unit received funding from two funds, Genesia Ventures and ESP Capital. By 2018, the startup continued to successfully raise an additional $2.5 million from Genesia Ventures, Founders Capital, Y1 Ventures and two other investors.
In early 2019, Luxstay received another $3 million from CyberAgent and other investors. The fund also helped the startup restructure its internal operations. At that time, Shark Nguyen Manh Dung was the Director of CyberAgent Vietnam & Thailand Fund. Shark Dung also gave a presentation to support founder Nguyen Van Dung (Steven Dung) at the Shark Tank fundraising round.
Also in 2019, this unit successfully raised 4.5 million USD from 2 other Korean investors.
The startup also made an impression in the startup world when it announced that singer Son Tung M-TP invested in the company and cooperated to promote the image of Vietnamese tourism.
In 2019, singer Son Tung M-TP invested in Luxstay (Photo: Investment).
According to the National Business Registration Portal, Luxstay Vietnam Co., Ltd. was established in June 2018 with a charter capital of VND 7 billion. The legal representative and director is Mr. Nguyen Van Dung (born in 1989).
The company's headquarters is located in Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi. The owner of Luxstay Vietnam is Luxstay Pte.Ltd, headquartered in Singapore.
After 3 changes in charter capital, Luxstay Vietnam currently has a charter capital of 137 billion VND (equivalent to 6 million USD).
Currently, Luxstay Vietnam Co., Ltd. has a charter capital of 137 billion VND (Source: National portal on business registration).
After the moment of shine comes the transformation of the business model
Since 2019, the tourism industry has suffered heavy losses due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Businesses operating in the accommodation sector such as Luxstay have also been severely affected.
In June 2022, the website and application of this unit suddenly became inaccessible. At this time, Luxstay said that these moves were part of the company's brand restructuring plan.
Currently, this unit's application on the Appstore still uses the image of singer Son Tung M-TP. However, the application has received many 1-star reviews with feedback about not being able to open the application after downloading. These reviews have not yet been responded to by Luxstay.
Information about Luxstay application on the app market (Screenshot).
Currently, the Luxstay.com website is back in operation. This site provides search services for information about flights and hotels.
When performing the booking or ticket booking function, users will be forwarded to Luxstay's partners such as Agoda or Trip. It seems that Luxstay has stopped connecting homestay businesses according to the previous capital calling model.
Luxstay's website switches to providing flight and hotel search services (Screenshot).
In addition, the representative office in Ho Chi Minh City - Luxstay Vietnam Co., Ltd., established in early 2019, has also been dissolved.
Luxstay's representative office in Ho Chi Minh City has ceased operations (Photo: National portal on business registration).
Sharing with Dan Tri reporter, Mr. Steven Dung said that after Covid-19, the company has changed its business model and is currently cooperating with many companies, providing multiple services. Mr. Dung also shared that since the pandemic, there have been many changes in supply sources as well as tourist targets, and currently the company does not focus on homestay as before.
The founder of Luxstay said that the room booking and reservation service only operates at a maintenance level, not the company's central activity. He said that over the years, the unit has expanded into many other service areas, technology solutions, not just tourism.
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