Yanolja, the largest accommodation and leisure activity booking platform operator in South Korea, is taking steps toward an initial public offering, according to news reports Tuesday. The accommodation booking services firm is a local startup unicorn with a market value exceeding 1 trillion won ($855 million). The Seoul-based firm is widely expected to go public, along with game producer and unicorn Krafton, among many others.

In light of the momentum created in the local market by recent IPOs, including Kakao Games, the company is said to be speeding up its pace to make its debut on the stock market. 

Yanolja founder Lee Su-jin (Yanolja)

It recently issued requests for proposals from five local and global brokerage firms to proceed with the IPO procedure.

“Yanolja has started seeking IPO underwriters,” a Yanolja official was quoted as saying by the Maeil Business Daily.

“It aims to go public in 2022 since it seems hard to carry out the IPO scheme this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which hit the local and global markets hard,” the official added.

The company earned 300 billion won in sales last year, a 78.8 percent increase from the previous year. Its revenue from the local market accounted for 270 billion won while that from global markets came in at 30 billion won.

In June last year it attracted $180 million from Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC and online hotel booking firm Booking Holdings.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)