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Russian Start-up Jizo.ru Gives Facebook Users a New Targeted Flight Ticket Search Service and Additional Revenue from Airlines’ Commissions for Facebook Itself

Dépèche transmise le 9 novembre 2011 par Business Wire

MOSCOW--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jizo.ru, Fast Lane Ventures’ portfolio company, has launched its new flight finding tool, Jizo Flight Finder, in conjunction with the Russian segment of Facebook. This new service allows Facebook users to see and purchase, in real time, the best offers of flights to their network of friends living in other cities and countries. Unlike other applications currently available with Facebook which are based on standard searches, Jizo Flight Finder is more advanced and targeted, offering tickets only applicable to users friends’ locations.

The project is estimated to make $130 million a year for Facebook’s Russian segment, with the potential to reach $6 billion if launched on a global scale. This estimate is based on the minimum industry “look-to-book” rate (conversion from website visits to ticket sales) of 1%, which shows that the number of daily tickets sold on Russian Facebook could be 90,000 tickets per day in 2012 (1% from 9 million Russian Facebook users). With an average fare of $200, revenue could amount to $18 million per day and the 2% commission paid by airlines and online travel agents to Jizo and Facebook is estimated to be $360,000 per day, or $130 million in total over a whole year. Facebook’s share of the revenue would be 50%, or an estimated $65 million. On a global scale the amount of additional revenue could reach $6 billion, with Facebook and Jizo entitled to one half each.

Sergei Lavrentyev, Jizo.ru Co-Founder and CEO, commented:
“The Jizo Flight Finder will be a separate application to begin with, which users can choose to download, but as it gains popularity Facebook has agreed to consider the application becoming a permanent feature of Facebook available on every account and provide Jizo.ru with the free advertising tools needed to promote this exciting new service. We are in talks with Facebook global HQ about this at the moment.”

Facebook users can install the Jizo Flight Finder application for free following this link: http://www.facebook.com/jizo.russia?sk=app_301978126495217/ and at any time be aware of the cheapest air fares to their friends and family so they can see them in person.

Jizo.ru

Travel meta-search engine, co-founded by Sergei Lavrentyev and Andrei Antipov, funded by Fast Lane Ventures and eVenture Capital Partners.

Launched May 1, 2011. The world's first meta-search engine that compares regular flights with charters, and air with the Russian Railways. The world's first meta-search engine that is connected to the Russian Aviation Global Distribution Systems TAIS and Sirena for direct access to the Russian domestic flights.

Fast Lane Ventures is the leading developer of Internet companies in the high growth Russian Internet market acting as both an investor and operational partner assisting with management and promotion of its portfolio companies after their launch.

More information about the company at http://fastlaneventures.ru/ru/index.html