Aviasales.ru, a leading search engine for flights and hotel bookings, has attracted $43 million from Elbrus Capital and iTech Capital, two PE/VC firms with Russian roots. The latter had already invested $10 million in the company seven years ago, in 2014.
The latest capital injection — which is sizable by Russian standards — will help the company launch new products and accelerate its domestic and international growth. Aviasales also intends to develop further its corporate travel service as well as Travelpayouts, its global platform for automated affiliate marketing.
Founded in 2007, Aviasales touts itself as “one of the world’s leading travel metasearch platforms with a monthly audience exceeding 15 million users.” It says it is performing well, “pre-pandemic levels,” despite all of the difficulties caused by the pandemic.
“We’ve never stopped investing in our team and product development so that we can strengthen our position as the ‘go-to’ website for everything travel — from inspiration to booking. There’s still lots of work to be done in our core business, which is the powerful flight search engine, but we’re also keen to expand our non-flight revenue streams,” stated the company’s CEO Max Kraynov,
“It’s now clear that the travel industry can survive even in the most turbulent conditions [and] it is a perfect time to invest,” said Gleb Davidyuk, Managing Partner of the iTech Capital group of funds.
“The recovery of the industry and a number of new products from Aviasales establishes a strong foundation for our ambitious growth plans and business development,” the investor added.
In a recent media interview, Kraynov said Aviasales now accounts some 17% of all the flight bookings generated in Russia, up from just 5% in 2017.
