Czech startup Skypicker has recently secured an investment from Touzimsky Airlines, part of Touzimsky Kapital. The exact contribution has not been disclosed according to the terms of the deal, but Oliver Dlouhý, CEO of Skypicker, told inventures.eu that “we received more than 500.000 dollars in exchange for 20% of the company.”
The low-cost airline booking engine has already used part of the investment for acquiring one of their competitors – WhichAirline.com – and the rest will go towards product development and expanding the team.
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WhichAirline
As a result of the recent deal, we also caught up with Lukáš Nevosád, founder of WhichAirline and CEO of Tripomatic, an online map and trip planner (as well as an inventures profilee), to find out what this acquisition meant to him. “While WhichAirline has been the [source] of our revenue, Tripomatic has been our true passion and after two years, we realised it was impossible to do both at the same time in the small team we had,” explained Nevosád.
So if for Skypicker buying out the meta search engine meant getting access to a new traffic source, for Nevosád it was an opportunity to “get enough capital to fully focus on Tripomatic and its development as it is no longer a hobby-project.”
What the future holds
We are still investing a lot in the development of our product, we’re trying to have our bottom line just slightly in the back
Founded in April 2012 and currently with an active team of seven people and 20 external co-workers, Skypicker is earning money through each booking made via their website. The small booking fee covers “the whole booking process, the automatic check-in, 24/7 customer care and we secure an alternative flight for our customers, who miss their connection due to delayed first flight – at our expense,” said Dlouhý.
The 500.000-dollar revenue in 2013 is expected to grow to 2,5 million dollars as a result to their rapid growth and recent acquisition. “We’re still investing a lot in the development of our product, so we’re trying to have our bottom line just slightly in black,” said Dlouhý.
For all these to happen, Skypicker is ready to work a lot of hours on implementing long-haul flights, new mobile apps and a brand new product that currently remains a secret, but according to Dlouhý who has already seen the beta version, “it’s going to be a killer, so stay tuned!”
And so we shall.
