Skyscanner

Offices

Skyscanner is headquartered in Scotland, with offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London, with others in Singapore, Sofia, Beijing, Miami, Barcelona, (following Skyscanner's 2013 acquisition of Spanish hotel comparison firm, Fogg), Budapest (after acquiring app development agency Distinction) and Shenzhen, (following acquisition of Chinese company Youbibi) and Tokyo (following a joint venture with Yahoo! Japan).

History

The company was formed in 2001 by three information technology professionals, Gareth Williams, Barry Smith and Bonamy Grimes, after one of them was frustrated by the difficulties of finding cheap flights to ski resorts.

Skyscanner was first developed and released in 2002. In 2003, the first employee was hired to assist with site development. The Edinburgh office was opened in 2004.

In 2011, Skyscanner acquired the door-to-door travel site Zoombu for an undisclosed amount.

Skyscanner opened an office in Singapore in September 2011, which is headquarters for its Asia-Pacific operations.

In 2012, a Beijing office was added, as Skyscanner began a partnership with Baidu, China's largest search engine.

By 2013, the company employed over 180 people.

In February 2013, Skyscanner announced plans to open a US base in Miami

In October 2013, Sequoia Capital announced it had purchased an interest in Skyscanner that valued the company at $800 million.

In June 2014, Skyscanner acquired Youbibi, a travel search engine company based in Shenzen, China.

In August 2014, a market research study found that, in comparison to other travel websites, Skyscanner tended to have more users aged 16–34. The same study found that 64% of those who have used Skyscanner trust the platform.

In October 2014, Skyscanner acquired the Budapest-based mobile app developer Distinction.

In January 2016, Skyscanner announced that it had raised $192 million based on a $1.6 billion valuation for the company.

By February 2015, the company employed 600 people, double the employment of 18 months earlier.

In November 2016, Ctrip, the largest travel firm in China, bought Skyscanner for $1.75 billion. At the time, the company had 674 employees, who had an average stake of £166,172 in the firm.

Awards and accolades

Skyscanner has won various awards including a Queen's Award for Enterprise, Travolution Brand of the Year 2011 and Best Flight Comparison 2010 from Travolution.

The site has been well received by the UK media; in an "Online Cheap Flight Finding Experiment" run by The Guardian newspaper, Skyscanner was praised for finding the lowest flight fares and for "beating much bigger operators such as Expedia and Travelocity". The site was also listed in The Independent newspaper's articles - "The Ten Best: Travel Sites". and "101 Really Useful Websites", published in 2007. The Daily Telegraph named Skyscanner as one of the nine best travel websites in 2009.

Media usage

Skyscanner was mentioned in the track 'Detox' by UK grime artist and 2016 Mercury Prize winner Skepta: "Now I'm like an airhostess, how I jump on the flight / Skyscanner, I book it on-site"