Timing was in Wego's favour with the last round of fund raising – Priceline had bought Kayak for US$1.8 billion and Expedia had acquired a 61.6% stake in Trivago for 434 million Euros – and suddenly, meta search became the flavor of the month.

"It definitely helped," said Ross Veitch, CEO of the company he started with partner Craig Hewett eight years ago. "The world's two biggest online travel players buying into two of the world's biggest meta search companies – it was a great validation of the meta search model and that the proposition is here to stay."

The valuation placed by Priceline and Expedia on Kayak and Trivago respectively "certainly helped our cause – both are considered to be smart investors and people are looking at the meta search model and sector now," said Veitch.

And in fact, Veitch believes the meta search model has a lot more value to consumers in Asia Pacific than in the US or Europe due to the lack of price parity in the marketplace. "In most of our markets, there are more suppliers, more independent hotels, vibrant low cost carriers and more comparison shopping is needed.

"Search is able to add more value in Asia and the consumer proposition is stronger here.'

Having said that, he admits that Wego has not been able to build as strong a consumer facing brand as Kayak and Trivago have done in their markets. And this is what the latest war chest is for – to turn Wego into a top online travel brand across the region.

It's just hired Joachim Holte, formerly from Wotif in Sydney, as chief marketing officer and "one of his challenges is to turn Wego into a household brand by whatever means necessary", said Veitch.

And one of those means will include "getting out of our comfort zone of online stuff into above the line", with Veitch citing Trivago as an example of how the company built a brand out of nothing, by using television direct response.

In this last round, US$17 million was raised, bringing to US$36 million the total raised by Wego since its founding. The latest investment round was led by Crescent Point with contributions from Victoria Capital and existing shareholder Tiger Global.

What also helped was that Wego brought in The Raine Group, a US-based merchant bank focused exclusively on the digital, media & entertainment and sports & lifestyle sectors, to help the process.

"I strongly recommend this to anyone who is looking to raise funds. It is hard to run a company and raise funding at the same time. They helped us position the company, kept the competitive dynamics healthy, introduced us to new people – VCs, private equity, sovereign wealth funds – and they managed the entire process," said Veitch.

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