Air travel company raises $105M

JetSmarter plans expansion

A Fort Lauderdale company that’s seeking to reinvent private air travel is flying high with $105 million in new investments.

JetSmarter said Monday that it raised $105 million in a new round of funding from the existing investors including the Saudi Royal Family and rapper and producer Jay-Z, as well as undisclosed institutional investors, said founder and CEO Sergey Petrossov.

The new financing brings JetSmarter to total financing of $157 million, including $52 million from previous rounds, since the company was founded in 2013.

Petrossov said the financing will be put toward further expansion of JetSmarter’s shuttle service or flights between key cities, which now includes 50 routes in the U.S., including Dallas, Boston to Washington, D.C., Seattle to San Francisco.

Over the past year, JetSmarter added JetShuttle flights in cities including New York, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Atlanta, London, Paris, Moscow, Dubai and Milan.

“There’s still a lot of room for growth,” Petrossov said. The company plans to expand to India, China and Latin America, he said.

JetSmarter, which is headquartered at 500 E. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, began with memberships for the charter service and now has a roster of 6,700 members, the CEO said.

Members pay a $15,000 initial fee and then a $11,500 annual fee to belong to JetSmarter. They receive free flights on regularly scheduled shuttles. They also can book a charter, and jump on empty leg flights, also known as JetDeals. To save money they can share the charter — paying for only their own seat, while JetSmarter books the remaining seats.

The company doesn’t own the aircraft — it works with a network of charter companies that fly luxury jets including midsized Gulfstream aircraft that offer two flight attendants.

Petrossov declined to disclose JetSmarter’s annual revenue but said it has increased by 350 percent this year over 2015.

JetSmarter employs about 250 people with 110 in Fort Lauderdale, and others spread around London, Zurich, Dubai and Moscow, he said.

Besides Fort Lauderdale, the firm maintains offices in London, Dubai and Riyadh. In late September, Gov. Rick Scott offered words of support during a formal opening of the Fort Lauderdale office on the 19th floor of the Broward Financial Center.

Petrossov said the challenge in building the business has been the “behavioral change” in choosing private jets, rather than commercial flights, and in sharing a private jet with other members.

The jet service, which can be arranged with the tap of a mobile app, is available to only about 2 percent of the population who can afford the luxury. But Petrossov said his plan within two to five years is to offer more affordable shuttles, such as from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa, or Miami to Orlando.

“We’ve begun beta testing in the Northeast,” he said. “It would be a lowerentry level membership to hop between locations — an alternative to car transportation.”

JetSmarter was approved for $960,000 in economic incentives from the city of Fort Lauderdale and the state earlier this year.