Airalo: Travel Made Easy!
By, Jake Teller
Most international travelers understand the inconvenience and stress of walking off the plane in a foreign country without any cellular service or access to Wi-Fi. The fear, stress, and expenses of attempting to find a new SIM card as quickly as possible is a feeling that Airalo founders Abraham Burak and Ahmet Bahadır Özdemir are trying to eliminate. Travelers simply download the Airalo app, plug in the country they are visiting, and purchase a relatively cheap eSIM service plan.
Originally founded in 2019, Airalo is the first ever marketplace for digital SIM cards, and now boasts service plans in over 190 countries. In its Series A funding, which happened to occur in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Airalo raised an impressive $5.4 million from VC firm Rakuten Ventures, a Japanese fund that focuses its investments on up-and-coming technology and digital services companies. This funding has allowed Airalo to grow at an exceptionally fast rate. As of the end of 2022, Airalo has grown exponentially in popularity, as the number of Airalo users is up 700%, reaching over one million people.
The co-founders of this fast-growing company each have their own unique stories. Abraham Burak is a Canadian businessman, with extensive training as a legal and business consultant. In 2019, Burak was working towards a Ph.D. when he decided to work at Airalo full time. He dropped all other pursuits and went all in on Airalo as his primary source of income, which has paid off thus far. Burak’s co-founder Ahmet Bahadır Özdemir has always been an entrepreneur and founded his first company at the age of 19. Since selling that company, he has built a career in the entrepreneurship industry at several firms, most of them in the startup industry. Similar to Burak, when Airalo began to take off, Bahadır Özdemir shifted his focus to the eSIM company. Through the hard work and unique backgrounds of both of the co-founders, Airalo has been able to grow explosively and consistently since 2019.
With a revolutionary idea and strong backing, Airalo is, by all measures, a success. After exponential growth throughout 2022 and a 700% increase in users, Airalo is poised to continue its growth and profitability as it enters 2023.