Kiwi.com takes big investment as General Atlantic becomes majority owner

Kiwi.com, an online travel agency specializing in virtual interlining, has received a strategic investment from General Atlantic.

Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, but it is believed the equity firm has invested in excess of $125 million in the Czech Republic-based business.

According to a statement, Citi is acting for General Atlantic in the sale of Kiwi, and its co-founders, Oliver Dlouhy and Jozef Kepesi, remain “significant shareholders.”

Both will also stay on to run the company, the statement says.

All other shareholders have been bought out except Touzimsky Airlines, which retains a small stake, having originally invested $500,000 in the business in 2014.

Kiwi was founded in 2012 as Skypicker but rebranded in 2016.

The company raised funding of $1 million in March 2015 from a Czech-based entrepreneur.

Kiwi enables consumers to connect different legs of a trip from different carriers into one transaction.

It also offers this technology to airlines and airports and has a partnership in place with Stansted Airport.

Of the sale, Dlouhy says: “The firm’s [General Atlantic] deep expertise in the tech and travel sectors and track record of helping high‐growth, category‐disrupting companies achieve global scale will be hugely beneficial as we take Kiwi.com to the next level.”

Dlouhy adds that the company has been bootstrapped until now and put its efforts towards profitability.

“With GA this might change, and we will be able to sacrifice short-term profitability for growth if it makes business sense. GA also comes with a deep experience of scaling up companies and a network of skilled executives that might support our team in the future.

“Last but not least, we will be capable of doing bigger M&A transactions than using just our own capital.”

In late 2018, Kiwi invested in a minority stake in AeroCRS, an airline technology company.

Earlier this year it also invested in Zuri, a project aiming to introduce unmanned civilian flights.

General Atlantic has invested in many travel startups including Airbnb, Meituan, Uber, Smiles and Despegar.