When you book an airplane ticket, price is no longer the only criterion - you also look at the optional extras on board. What stands behind them is to a large extent the product of Vayant Travel Technologies: a company set up in 2007 by Bulgarians, which was recently acquired by US-based PROS Holdings for $35 million. The price ranked it among the top three IT transactions in Bulgaria for the past ten years. More importantly, Vayant offered its own unique product. The largest shareholder in the company prior to the deal was Bulgarian venture capital fund NEVEQ.
Growing faster together
Vayant is one of the few companies in the world that provide airlines with an individual algorithm allowing them to offer their customers up-to-date information about the price of their airplane tickets and the accompanying services, taking into account all pricing factors. For many years that service was outsourced to large companies, which deprived carriers of control over an important part of their business, i.e. distribution. Vayant's product aims to restore distribution to airlines. Such a solution is offered by only three companies in the world - and Google is one of them.
The fresh input into the aviation business and the new opportunities for data management developed by Vayant attracted the attention of Houston-based PROS Holdings and following a series of meetings the two companies struck a deal.
Although Vayant is registered in the United States, its team is actually based in Sofia and the new owners plan to keep it that way. The office in Bulgaria's capital city, which employs some 90 developers and engineers, stands a good chance of becoming a second European center of PROS, which operates on three continents. Besides, the two companies can grow faster by cross-adding new clients and services.
With the acquisition by PROS, all Vayant's activities will be merged into the buyer, which will allow Vayant's employees to develop within a large corporate structure active in segments outside the aviation industry, says NEVEQ's General Partner Pavel Ezekiev.
In search of a business niche
Initially, the Bulgarian team worked on various software solutions in search of a business niche where to position the company. NEVEQ 1, the first venture capital fund of NEVEQ, invested in Vayant from the very beginning. In Ezekiev's words, the investment was in the range between $5 million and $10 million. Several years later the Bulgarian company focused on the development of a SaaS (software-as-a- service) platform that would restore distribution to airlines.
Vayant's only competitors - and until then monopolists - were Amadeus and Sabre, which serviced almost all existing carriers. The fact that Vayant was a small company was a key advantage, as it allowed it to be flexible and quickly adapt to changes in a dynamic industry.
In 2010 Vayant came up with a ready product that attracted the attention of another investment fund, Cape Capital, and the Bulgarian team decided to appoint top management that would take the company to the market. The CEO position was entrusted to Eric Dumas: a French national who had already had several successful companies in his portfolio - all of them sold. Shortly after that Air Baltic became Vayant's first client and a dozen more followed. About that time another competitor emerged on the market: the IT giant Google with its ITA platform.
Vayant introduced a new model of work with airlines. It offered database hosting, merchandizing and a search engine for end consumers as a separate components, giving them transparency. Vayant also put a focus on the search engine, which is crucial for customer experience and for the marketing strategy.
When you book an airplane ticket, price is no longer the only criterion - you also look at the optional extras on board. What stands behind them is to a large extent the product of Vayant Travel Technologies: a company set up in 2007 by Bulgarians, which was recently acquired by US-based PROS Holdings for $35 million. The price ranked it among the top three IT transactions in Bulgaria for the past ten years. More importantly, Vayant offered its own unique product. The largest shareholder in the company prior to the deal was Bulgarian venture capital fund NEVEQ.
