AI chatbot Bard made a factual error in the first demo
10 February 2023
28 February 2023
Kiwi.com experienced significant losses during the two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Last year, however, it achieved its highest revenue since its inception in 2012. The company's revenue reached CZK 50 billion, up from CZK 33 billion the previous year, and its gross operating profit rose to almost EUR 10 million.
The Brno-based Kiwi.com was founded ten years ago under the name Skypicker and is currently owned by the US fund General Atlantic (53 %), founder and director Oliver Dlouhý (22 %), Jozef Kepési holding 12 % and Touzimsky Airlines owning the rest. Kiwi has subsidiaries in the US, the Netherlands, Spain, China and the UK and had over 800 employees in 2021.
Forbes magazine named Kiwi.com the best startup in the Czech Republic in 2017 and 2018. The company's business model is based on a specialized algorithm that combines flights with companies that do not have a partnership agreement between them, thus providing customers with more options. The company has also survived two pandemic years, with a loss of over CZK 1 billion in 2020 and a loss of CZK 304 million a year later. To bridge the challenging period, Kiwi.com drew a loan from Komerční banka and Citibank Europe of up to €45 million with a maturity of 35 months.
Over 8 million passengers used the company's services last year, more than double the number from the previous year and a third more than the previous record set in 2019.