Yamsafer operates a hotel booking platform targeting interregional travel within the Middle East and Turkey, offering localized maps, content, cardless booking and telephone booking to serve customers without credit cards or full online comfort. The company says it currently lists about 4,000 properties and covers 18 countries, with Saudi Arabia accounting for roughly 70% of transactions and Gulf countries about 90% of its business. Yamsafer positions itself as the regionally focused alternative to global players, and claims to be the second largest online hotel booking service in transaction volume after Booking.com. The startup emphasizes catering to regional preferences (for example, large rooms, villas or chalets for big families) and sees cultural limits on models like Airbnb as a market opportunity. Management reports rapid growth through 2014 and plans to use new funding to accelerate growth and expand the team. Yamsafer is a travel startup that enables travelers to book a large inventory of Middle Eastern hotels online at discounted prices and to obtain tickets for popular regional events. The company was launched in September 2011 by Faris Zaher, Seri Abdelhadi and Sameh Alfar and is based in Ramallah, Palestine. Yamsafer's core product is its online hotel-booking platform covering the Middle East. The company plans to use the funding to scale its technology and migrate the platform to mobile. It also intends to expand customer acquisition efforts and strengthen partnerships with hoteliers. Financially, Yamsafer has raised $1M in a Series A round led by Sadara Ventures.

Total raised

$5M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Jun 2015