Russian tourists are known around the world for many things, some of them quite embarrassing. Despite their many shortcomings Russian tourists are also a gold mine for the hospitality industry: they travel a lot and they like spending huge amounts of cash while at it. A new Russian start-up Hipclub.ru, backed by Skype's former CEO Michael van Swaaij and founder of eDreams Javier Pérez-Tenessa, launched an invitation-only travel club that offers exclusive short-term discounts on hotels and travel destinations, reports Quintura. No details of the investment have been disclosed. The service is a new project from the team behind Hipway.ru - a search portal for exotic travel tours. That project was founded in 2009 and received over $500 000 investment from European and American investors. Founders behind both of the projects offered interesting insight into the Russian VC market on their blog [in Russian].

'The main lesson we learned was that we don't want to work with Russian VC investors because they don't understand the idea of venture funding as such. They say things like 'we won't fund you if you use the money for advertising' or else they want 65% of your company for just $100 000 etc.' - shares Mihail Kechinov, CTO.

'Western investors, on the other hand, are prepared to invest only in business models they are familiar with. Thus, if you want to raise money [from foreign investors as a Russian start-up], think of your brand parallel straight ahead - 'we are the Russian Groupon' or 'we are the Russian Expedia' - and you are much more likely to be successful'. Very true observation - most of the Russian projects funded by foreign investors tend to be copies of something already existing in their own countries. Though another reason for that might be that many Russian start-ups copy and adapt to the local markets services that have acquired success in US or Europe.

Nevertheless, that logic might have played a major part in their new investment - Hipclub is almost a direct clone of a very successful French company Voyage Privee. Both companies are invite-only (because of legal restictions on the exclusive deals), both send newsletters once a week with 6-8 exclusive offers that last a couple of days and both take a small cut from the money transactions on their websites. However, Voyage Privee has been around since 2006 and by now has acquired 3,5M members and generated a turnover of 100M€ in 2009.

It's too early to tell whether Hipclub would grow by hundreds percentage points a year. Though given Russian tourist's hunger for exclusive travel, increasing tech literacy and universal desire for paying less for more - the service might become a success.