Academ-Online

History

2025: Yandex bought Akadem-Online

Yandex Travel service acquired Akadem-Online's business of booking hotels for business trips, entering a new segment of business tourism with a market volume of over ₽1 trillion. This became known in early July 2025.

According to Forbes, the amount of the transaction could be ₽1,5 - 2 billion, but the parties do not disclose the exact cost of the acquisition . Yandex intends to additionally invest about ₽2 billion in the B2B direction in the next two years.

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Фото: Freepik

Yandex has become the owner of 100% shares in two companies of the Akadem-Online group, which develops a digital platform for booking hotels. The platform is used by agencies, tour operators and companies when organizing business trips in Russia and abroad. More than 100 employees of Akadem-Online and the head of the service, Alexander Kurnosov, will join Yandex.

The head of Yandex Travel, Yevgeny Abramzon, explained that the company plans to organize seamless integration of two services. The technological infrastructure of Akadema will eventually become part of Travel. The tour operator company Akademservice is not included in the purchase agreement.

Abramzon explained the decision to buy by the need to develop the business tourism segment. Some users regularly request reporting documentation - checks and receipts from business trips. Initially, Yandex planned to independently build a service in this area, but decided to reduce the preparation time for entering the market.

Akadem-Online was the first consolidation service to engage in B2B tourism. The company has more than 7,500 facilities at competitive prices. Yandex acquires a technological product that includes an extranet for hoteliers, billing for mutual settlements and document management.

The Russian business travel market is showing steady growth. According to the Union of Business Tourism Agencies, in 2024 its volume exceeded ₽1 trillion with an increase of 27%. The Association of Tour Operators of Russia estimated the market size in 2023 at ₽500 - 600 billion with an expected growth in 2024 by 5 -^[1]

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