APIN, an air ticket booking service company, announced that it has completed its A-round funding with tens of millions of yuan from Glory Ventures, Guanyou Investment, APC Fund, Desun Investment and Chuanghe VC.
The Hangzhou-based startup links up charter flight operators with air tickets for sale and FIT travelers looking for air tickets. Charter operators usually buy out a quantity of flight tickets at low prices directly from airline companies and then resell the tickets to travel wholesalers, travel agencies and individual agents. There are usually some residual tickets that will be redirected towards the FIT market, and APIN comes in and provides a platform for end-users and charter operators to trade those tickets.
Charter suppliers can post information about available tickets on APIN’s platform and customers can also submit their needs on the platform, building a Groupon-like distribution channel. The platform will collect 5% of a transaction’s value as commission for each successful deal. APIN estimates that the charter flight market is worth around RMB 200 billion.
APIN plans to focus on outbound routes in the preliminary stage. The fund raised in the latest round will be invested in enrolling outbound flight charter operators and building a SaaS platform in the C2B model “Name Your Price”. (Translated by Jerry)
