Russian Travel Startup OneTwoTrip Acquires Analytics-Driven Hotel Comparison Site DealAngel

A little over a year into its existence, analytics-driven hotel price comparison site DealAngel has been acquired by Russian travel startup OneTwoTrip. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. However, according to a source, the San Francisco/Prague-based startup was valued somewhere in the range of $10-15 million, though I’ve been unable to corroborate if it went for that price.

OneTwoTrip, which is also a relatively young company, having launched in 2011, claims to have already established itself as a leading travel site in Russia. Focusing primarily on flights, it says the purchase of DealAngel is a “strategic move” to help it gain ground in the hotel-booking market. In addition, all three founders of DealAngel — Roman Peskin, Bob Rogers, and Oleg Zaidiner — will be become part of the OneTwoTrip team.

From a product point of view, the two startups’ offering seem to be a good fit. DealAngel lets consumers search for hotels and compare prices based on their historic and comparative market value. Specifically, the problem that it set out to solve is that hotel prices online often claim to offer significant savings but very often mask the true value when compared to similar hotels and what you could normally expect to pay.

To tackle this, DealAngel’s technology looks at “millions” of data points across the Web to determine a hotel’s real market value, taking into account things like location, star-rating, comparable offers, and most crucially, how that hotel’s pricing has changed over time. It’s also able to offer a feature called “Trends & Alerts”, which helps find the best time to book a room. In this respect it’s akin to how a stock broker tracks the stock market. Or, as we’ve previously noted, given some of the dirty tricks employed by the travel industry, a bit like playing a slot machine but with the slot machine’s maker standing over your shoulder giving you tips.

Similarly, OneTwoTrip offers a more comprehensive range of data points to power its travel search and booking site. This includes offering “critical” travel information such as flight ratings broken down by airline which incorporates delay frequency, cancellation occurrences, space in the cabin and between seats and how old the aircraft is, as well as providing those crucial savings.

OneTwoTrip is backed by Atomico and Phenomen Ventures to the tune of $25 million. Meanwhile, DealAngel is thought to have raised just over $1 million. Its lead investor was Foresight Ventures, along with backing from Bright Capital, and TechStars.