Smartway Smartway

Smartway (Smartway LLC) is a Russian company founded in 2016 that develops a service of the same name that deals with booking tickets and hotels for corporate clients.

Infographic about tourism business "1C"

1C entered the tourism market in 2018 by buying control packages in the Smartway startup, the developer of an IT platform for organizing business trips, as well as in the small Sawady tour operator specializing in travel in Russia. By 2023, the tourism business has grown noticeably, both due to the dynamic development of first-born assets and thanks to new acquisitions. In 2022, their total revenue amounted to almost 2.5 billion rubles.

All 1C assets in the field of tourism are given in the infographic (click to increase).

Detailed analysis of the tourism business "1C" - at the link.

2023

Purchase of business tourism agency ATH

At the end of May 2023, the sale of the ATH business tourism agency to the Smartway travel organization service was announced. The transaction will cost $2-5 million, depending on the level of growth in the client base and turnover in the MICE direction (services for organizing business trips, issuing visas and organizing events). Read more here.

Purchase of Travelmart Business Tourism Agency

The Russian business travel service Smartway was bought by the Travelmart business tourism agency. The companies announced this deal in early April 2023. At the same time, the financial parameters of the agreement are not disclosed. Read more here.

2022: A&A Business Travel Services Holding Purchase

On July 5, 2022, it became known about the sale of A&A Business Travel Services Holding to the Smartway travel organization service (51% owned by 1C) for $3 million. The company sold can receive several million more dollars by the end of 2022 when fulfilling certain KPIs (details are not disclosed). Read more here.

2018: 1C buys majority stake in Smartway

On January 15, 2018, it became known about the sale of a 51 percent stake in Smartway to 1C. The value of the transaction was not disclosed, but an informed source of the Kommersant newspaper estimates it at 150 million rubles.

It is assumed that 1C investments will help Smartway accelerate software development: it is planned to release a mobile version of the service, launch intelligent assistant bots and strengthen the Big Data-based analytics block.

1C bought 51% of Smartway online travel booking service

The founder and head of the startup Maxim Yaremko will continue to operate the company. The partnership with "1C" would help Smartway automate processes and increase market share through the company's franchisee network, he said.

Other applicants showed interest in buying the service, but "they did not reach substantive negotiations," said Yaremenko, who owned 100% of Smartway LLC before the 1C deal.

For the first time, 1C is investing in the segment of travel services, says Alexei Kharitonov, head of the department for promoting 1C economic programs.

Maxim Yaremko says that the market for automation of business travel processes is not consolidated (none of the players has a share of more than 7% of the market), and most players work manually. Online solutions that are on the market are still built on the infrastructure of offline agencies: IT companies are practically not present in this segment, he added.^[1]

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