Why Has Yanolja Retained Here We Go for Seven Years?

Here We Go attracted 50 billion won in investment from Mirae Asset Capital and others in 2022. At that time, its recognized corporate value was 1.2 trillion won.

This meant Here We Go had already joined the ranks of unicorn companies, but the sale was delayed as no easy buyer emerged willing to acquire the company for over 1 trillion won.

Its operating profit margin reached 23.8%, indicating a very successful year of business.

Such high profitability proves the company's sound financial health.

From the perspective of a private equity fund, this is a time when serious consideration for investment recovery (Exit) is needed.

For fund investors, it is important to show high returns or shorten the investment period, and seven years is by no means a short time.

This indicates that the company's financial situation was not good at the time of the private equity acquisition.

While the exact acquisition price was not disclosed at the time, the industry estimates the deal to be around 300 billion won.

This shows that CVC Capital made a bold investment, recognizing Here We Go's potential.

The market's online penetration was low, but transaction volume in the first half of the year increased by 40% compared to the previous year, showing rapid growth.

CVC Capital focused on this low online penetration and high growth potential to decide on the investment. Indeed, market growth was quickly proven, with booking transaction volume tripling within two years of the acquisition.

After acquiring Here We Go, CVC Capital focused on increasing the productivity of its sales organization, strengthening IT infrastructure, and utilizing data analytics to explore new growth and profit opportunities. During this process, the number of customers tripled, and business areas were continuously expanded.

Specifically, in 2020, it aggressively pursued M&A, including acquiring the restaurant search platform 'MangoPlate' and investing in overseas travel platforms. It also expanded its service offerings by adding various travel products such as overseas accommodations, airline tickets, and rental cars.

These strategies contributed to Here We Go's growth into a comprehensive travel platform and strengthened its overall platform competitiveness.

Through CVC Capital's active management intervention and investment, Here We Go was able to achieve both improved performance and business expansion.

In August 2024, Here We Go sent a Request for Proposal (RFP) to domestic securities firms to select an IPO underwriter. This was an attempt to shift the investment recovery (Exit) strategy to a public offering as the sale was not progressing smoothly.

However, the IPO initiative was also not without challenges.

Investment sentiment in the travel platform market was dampened, with competitors like Yanolja also seeing their IPOs delayed.

Moreover, as market attention began to shift from the platform industry to AI, the investment attractiveness of travel platforms relatively declined.

As the fund maturity approached, CVC Capital explored a fundraising method using a continuation fund. A continuation fund offers existing investors a way to recover their capital, attracts new investments, and transfers the company to a new fund to extend its operational period.

This method is used as a strategy to respond to fund maturity and secure additional time when an immediate company sale or IPO is difficult.

By the end of 2024, Vacance Company, which held 80.8% of Here We Go's shares, transitioned to a continuation fund by the end of 2025 and was replaced by Travel Laser Limited.

Travel Laser Limited secured 88.6% of the shares, becoming Here We Go's new largest shareholder. This is interpreted as a measure to reorganize Here We Go's long-term growth strategy along with changes in the fund structure.

Relux specializes in high-end accommodations in Japan and has secured approximately 4,000 lodging facilities.

Here We Go aims to integrate 3,000 of these accommodations into its app. This is an important step that expands its strategy for entering the Japanese market through platform acquisition, beyond simple direct contracts.

Relux's financial health was not good. As of the end of March 2026, its net short-term loss amounted to approximately 810 million yen (about 7.7 billion won), and its capital was minus 4.42 billion yen (about 4.8 billion won), indicating capital impairment.

Relux had been experiencing continuous profitability deterioration, recording consecutive deficits for nine fiscal periods since 2018.

The acquisition of Relux aims for business synergy and market base expansion through a 'bolt-on strategy' rather than short-term profitability improvement. Here We Go determined that by acquiring Relux, it could simultaneously secure relationships with local accommodations in Japan, a customer base, brand recognition, sales organization, and platform.

This is part of an infrastructure integration strategy to create synergy with existing businesses and stably enter the Japanese market.

The core purpose of the Relux acquisition is to overcome the limitation that high profits in the domestic market alone are insufficient to secure a sale. Here We Go aims to increase its corporate value by providing evidence of its ability to grow overseas.

Through this, it seeks to establish a physical base for entering the Japanese market and externally prove its potential as a global platform. Ultimately, the Relux acquisition can be seen as Here We Go's desperate measure to find a new breakthrough from the situation of a failed sale.

Indeed, there are cases where overseas platforms are surpassing domestic platforms in terms of MAU (Monthly Active Users) in Korea.

Overseas operators like Agoda are actively targeting the Korean market by investing massive marketing funds.

Trip.com's rapid growth since entering Korea in 2018 has demonstrated the importance of localization strategies. Because Korean consumers are very discerning, global platforms are enhancing app usability and CX (customer experience) to meet their standards.

They are particularly focusing on customer service operations to satisfy the high expectations of Korean consumers.

Overseas expansion carries the profitability burden of rising accommodation acquisition costs. With a limited supply of accommodations, competition among various platforms to secure them significantly increases the costs paid to lodging providers.

Furthermore, overseas platforms, as global companies, possess immense marketing capital, placing domestic companies like Here We Go in a situation where they must endure deteriorating profitability in competition with them.