Airlines Technology (AT), an IT solutions provider for airlines and travel agents, is planning to raise $5 million (about ₹35 crore) funding from private equity firms in exchange for an equity stake.

The start-up has appointed Dealsflow Ventures Consultants as advisors for the fund-raising, which will be used for its expansion plans.

This comes close on the heels of an undisclosed angel funding it raised from Travel Startups Incubator, a travel start-up investment and advisory firm, on May 26. This funding, which was also in lieu of a equity stake, was a consultancy-cum-cash deal.

“We have appointed an advisor, and we expect to start negotiations with potential investors and PE firms within a week or two. We intend to finalise the fund-raising in a month’s time, while the stake to be offered would be decided later,” confirmed AT Co-founder and Director Varun Bansal.

AT was founded in 2015 by Varun Bansal, along with his wife Smriti Kumar and his brother-in-law Paras Kumar. The Gurgaon-headquartered company, which has presence across India, Australia and Switzerland, intends to use the proceeds to set up offices in the UK, the US and the UAE.

“The offices would be set up in the next three-five years,” he added.

Under International Air Transport Association (IATA) affiliation, AT is currently in the process of developing a New Distribution Capability (NDC) aggregation platform that will provide content to online travel agents. AT will get a transaction-based fee for the content.

AT is working closely with NDC, an initiative that enables travellers to buy meal, book airport pick-up and drop and check-in seat among others. At present, about 70 per cent of air tickets are bought from online travel agents, with price and schedule being the only criterion.

The company is also looking at more than 150 million transactions and 3 per cent of global aggregation volume in next 5 years. With 3 per cent volume, AT expects revenues of $200 million.

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