Moscow-based startup incubator Fast Lane Ventures has just launched Jizo.ru, a metasearch engine for airline tickets. Jizo.ru aggregates ticket information “from a myriad of sources,” says the company, including the booking systems of leading travel agencies, airlines and booking sites. Its simplified, uncluttered interface allows users to select airline tickets by two main criteria: date and price. Jizo was inspired by such Western models as Kayak (USA) and Skyscanner (UK), the latter of which has a Russian version.
Jizo, which currently employs 10 people, is based on a CPC and CPA commission fee business model. Its main competitors are Yandex.Ticket and Aviasales.ru. Aviasales.ru, launched in 2008, claims to aggregate offers from 700 companies.
The nascent Russian online travel market is growing very fast with a considerable potential ahead: less than 5% of travel services are sold online in Russia vs. 30% to 60% in more advanced countries. East-West Digital News has reported on a number of projects in this field launched over the past couple of years.
Some of these projects have raised funds from international players, recently including Oktogo.ru, and Ostrovok.ru, backed by Ventech (France) and General Catalyst Partners (USA) respectively.
Sources close to East-West Digital News have indicated that a major Western operator is also about to launch a low cost airline ticket aggregator.
Fast Lane Ventures was founded in Moscow last year by two Western businessmen, Pascal Clément and Oskar Hartmann. Clément is a French serial entrepreneur who, among other activities, launched Russia’s biggest offline catalog-sales companies as soon as the late 1990s. Hartmann is a former German e-business consultant born in the Soviet Union known for launching KupiVIP.ru, Russia’s first private online sales club, in late 2008.
Fast Lane Ventures claims it brings projects from the idea stage to completion in a mere “50 days.”
