Aviasales raises $43M amid record drop in air travel

Aviasales held a second investment round for $43 million. The tourism industry has been hit hard by the pandemic, companies operating in it need funds,and for investors, this is an opportunity to get a share at a lower valuation

The Elbrus Capital and iTech Capital funds are investing $43 million in Aviasales, an online service for finding information about air tickets, hotels, insurance, etc. This is stated in a company message received by RBC.

How much the company was valued and the size of the share that the participants in the round received was not disclosed. The representative of the company only noted that its shareholders are still: the family of the founder Konstantin Kalinov, the management team, as well as the iTech Capital and Elbrus Capital funds. For Aviasales, this is the second round in its history. In the first, in February 2014, the company raised $10 million from iTech Capital. The details of the deal were also not disclosed at the time. Representatives of the parties only reported that the investor received less than 30% of the company. According to FORBES, the cost of Aviasales in 2020 was $174 million, the service ranked 26th among the most expensive Runet companies, and in 2019 - $196 million (11th place).

What is known about investors

iTech Capital combines several funds, the first of which was launched in 2010. Among the companies in which these funds have invested are Ticketland, Bitfury, iConText, QIWI Post, etc. Over the years, co-founders of the DST investment company Grigory Finger and Mikhail Vinchel, the founder and CEO of Evotor Andrey Romanenko, and others were mentioned among the investors of the group's funds. Elbrus Capital » brings together a group of funds, the first of which was launched in 2007. During their existence, they have conducted more than 90 transactions. In particular, these funds owned shares in Mail.ru Group, HeadHunter, CIAN Group, PickPoint, etc. Among the investors of the fund created last time, Kommersant named sovereign funds of the Middle East (in particular, subsidiaries of Mubadala and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority , ADIA), European Development Institute, private and family foundations, etc.

How Aviasales survived the pandemic

Aviasales was founded in 2007. In addition to RUSSIA, it has representatives in Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. According to its own estimate, the monthly active audience (MAU) of the service is 15 million users, most of which are users from Russia, the CIS countries, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. In Russia, the main legal entity of the service is Aviasales Media LLC. According to SPARK, the revenue of this company in 2020 amounted to 275.9 million rubles. (9% lower than in 2019), net loss - 15.8 million rubles. (instead of net profit for the year before in the amount of 8.8 million rubles). The sole shareholder of the LLC is the Cypriot Go Travel (Cyprus) LTD.