Skyscanner has attracted a £2.5 million first round funding package from leading venture capital group Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) to expand its rapidly-growing air travel site into the world’s most comprehensive easy-to-use flight search engine.

Skyscanner, which was founded in 2003 in Scotland, has developed innovative proprietary search engine technology which already allows consumers to obtain instant online comparisons on fares from more than 180 airlines to more than 5,000 destinations.

It plans to become the first flight search engine in the world to cover every scheduled flight, including budget and chartered airlines as well as major carriers. The website www.skyscanner.net which is free to use, is already generating profits and attracting around one million price enquiries a day.

Justin Barton, Partnerships Manager for British Airways at Agency.com, said:

“Skyscanner have proven to be technological leaders in the travel meta-search market. They have been delivering a unique and innovative product for years that affords functionality that competitors are still struggling to match. As a result they are uniquely valuable to partners like British Airways, consistently delivering strong conversion-to-sale and impressive volumes of short-haul traffic.”

About Skyscanner:
Skyscanner, founded in 2003 by former IT consultants Gareth Williams, Bonamy Grimes, and Barry Smith, is Europe’s leading flight search engine. Its flight search engine attracts around one million enquiries every day. An independent, free-to-use site, it represents a major advance in flight search engine technology, enabling users to search across multiple airlines and delivering up-to-date prices in seconds. Skyscanner’s database already covers more than 180 airlines flying to 5,000 destinations. Its strategy is to become the first dedicated flight search engine to include every scheduled flight in the world. It will cover all UK outbound flights by early 2008, followed by all European flights and then the rest of the world. The company is privately-owned and Scottish Equity Partners is its first venture capital backer.

About Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) :
SEP is a leading European venture capital firm based in Glasgow and London. It helps entrepreneurs create and build world class companies. The investment team, which has been investing together for 15 years, targets emerging companies in the information technology, healthcare and energy-related technology sectors. SEP’s previous investments include some of the UK’s most successful technology companies including CSR (LSE:CSR); Wolfson Microelectronics (LSE:WLF); and Atlantech Technologies (NASD:CSCO). Its current portfolio includes picoChip, ipaccess, Radioscape and Zeus.