{"id":2173,"date":"2016-12-12T21:01:33","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T21:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/jay-z-backed-jetsmarter-raises-105-million-to-become-uber-for-private-jets.html"},"modified":"2016-12-12T21:01:33","modified_gmt":"2016-12-12T21:01:33","slug":"jay-z-backed-jetsmarter-raises-105-million-to-become-uber-for-private-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/jay-z-backed-jetsmarter-raises-105-million-to-become-uber-for-private-jets.html","title":{"rendered":"Jay-Z backed JetSmarter raises $105 million to become Uber for private jets"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

JetSmarter<\/a> has raised $105 million in Series C funding, at a $1.5 billion pre-money valuation, to build its marketplace for private jet services according to Sergey Petrossov, the startup\u2019s founder and CEO.<\/p>\n

The massive funding round will be used primarily for\u00a0global expansion of JetSmarter in Asia and Latin America, Petrossov said, and increasing\u00a0the number of routes and flights\u00a0available to\u00a0JetSmarter members in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s app, which TechCrunch reviewed here<\/a>, allows travelers to book a seat on a private jet via the company\u2019s JetShuttle service, or to charter an entire plane if their entourage rolls deep.<\/p>\n

While anyone can download and evaluate its app, before flying JetSmarter members go through a light background check then pay $15,000 for a \u201ccore membership\u201d in the first year they join. Members then get a seat on a wide selection of flights \u201cfree,\u201d but have to pay for companion tickets if they want to bring a non-member along or pay to charter whole planes.<\/p>\n

\"jetsmarter_plane\"<\/p>\n

Members of the Saudi royal family, and hip hop icon and entrepreneur Shawn \u201cJay-Z\u201d Carter, earlier backers of JetSmarter, increased their investments in the startup with this round.<\/p>\n

New investors in JetSmarter\u2019s included an Abu Dhabi-based equity fund, JetEdge the global private aviation company that operates fleets of large cabin jets, KZ Capital in London, a Qatar-based private equity fund, and other strategic backers who the company did not have permission to name.<\/p>\n

Today, JetSmarter connects travelers to flights in 50 markets around the world including\u00a0New York, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Atlanta, London, Paris, Moscow, Dubai, Milan, and other business and leisure travel hubs. Petrossov said he wants to expand to be available in 80 to 100 markets\u00a0by the end of 2017.<\/p>\n

And the company wants to connect more cities on the U.S. map, including connecting Florida destinations to Boston, New York and Washington D.C., and San Francisco to Seattle.<\/p>\n

XOJET <\/a>President and CEO Bradley Stewart, who is also a senior advisor to private equity firm TPG, has joined JetSmarter\u2019s board with the most recent round of funding. The companies earlier struck a partnership that allowed JetSmarter to expand its offering of flights in North America.<\/p>\n

Competitors to JetSmarter include subscription, \u201call you can fly\u201d travel providers like SurfAir<\/a>, and other membership-driven private jet services like WheelsUp<\/a>, or StrataJet.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sergey<\/p>\n

Sergey Petrossov, JetSmarter CEO<\/p>\n

Jetsmarter has been able to grow rapidly\u00a0in private aviation where other players, like Beacon or BlackJet, which was also counted Jay-Z among its backers, have\u00a0faded away.<\/p>\n

Petrossov said, \u201cWe scale from the community. We use predictive maps and algorithms to find where the demand is, so that we will\u00a0never over supply the market, and can\u00a0just meet the amount of demand we have. Other companies would over supply and fly where they\u2019d have 20% loads. We have zero deadhead weight on our shuttles and a 90% load factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

JetSmarter doesn\u2019t\u00a0own any planes, but instead\u00a0works with operators, owners and, carriers who manage and maintain the planes, hire pilots and deal with safety and compliances issues for the heavily regulated industry.<\/p>\n

Being a software-driven, asset-light business,\u00a0Petrossov and his backers often compare JetSmarter\u00a0to an Uber for the skies.<\/p>\n

The company is hoping to go even further in that direction with something like \u201con-demand\u201d access to seats on a select number of private flights for non-members. They would pay basically $1 per mile for shorter trips, like Boston to New York, potentially.<\/p>\n

Petrossov said, \u201cEverything we do is about making flying fun again.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2016\/12\/12\/jay-z-backed-jetsmarter-raises-105-million-to-become-uber-for-private-jets\/?ncid=rss<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JetSmarter has raised $105 million in Series C funding, at a $1.5 billion pre-money valuation, to build its marketplace for private jet services according to Sergey Petrossov, the startup\u2019s founder <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-2173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-networking-and-communication","tag-network-and-communication"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t