JetSmarter raises $105M, plans Asia & Latin America expansion

JetSmarter, a private-jet app, has raised $105 million in Series C round of funding, at a $1.5 billion pre-money valuation, Techcrunch reported. These funds will be used primarily for global expansion of JetSmarter in Asia and Latin America, and increasing the number of routes and flights available to JetSmarter members in the US. JetSmarter claims to provide Uber like services in the sky and allows travelers to book a seat on a private jet via JetShuttle.

“We scale from the community. We use predictive maps and algorithms to find where the demand is, so that we will never over supply the market, and can just meet the amount of demand we have. Everything we do is about making flying fun again.”

“Other companies would over supply and fly where they’d have 20 percent loads. We have zero deadhead weight on our shuttles and a 90% load factor,” said Sergey Petrossov, CEO, JetSmarter. According to the company, the members go through a light background check and then pay $15,000 for a membership in the year they join and then they get a seat on a wide selection of flights free. In case, they want to bring a non-member along then they have to pay for companion tickets. Bradley Stewart, President and CEO, XOJET who is also a senior advisor to private equity firm TPG, has joined JetSmarter’s board with this funding round. New investors in JetSmarter included an Abu Dhabi-based equity fund, JetEdge, and KZ Capital in London.