Airalo Co-founders Duran Akçaylier and Ahmet Bahadir Ozdemir (R)
About three years ago, serial entrepreneur Ahmet Bahadir Ozdemir left his home country Turkey to find a more stable ecosystem that could genuinely support entrepreneurship. His hunt landed him in Singapore, where he decided to set up his third venture.
The startup, Airalo, which intends to disrupt the global telecom industry, has already become a darling of the VCs in town.
Airalo, a combination of the words ‘Air’ and ‘Alo’ (which means ‘hello’ in many parts of the world), is an eSIM store for travellers to access over 100 eSIMs at affordable, local rates. What this essentially means is that if you are on a foreign trip, you no longer need to go through the hassles of buying local physical SIM cards at the airport and installing it, or carry multiple cards — no matter where you are in the world.
“As travellers ourselves, we’ve faced the pains of not finding WiFi or losing the SIM card we carefully taped to the back of our phone and the horror of coming home to an unexpected roaming bill,” Ozdemir tells e27.
“We believe that in the modern world, connectivity and freedom should be accessible to all. Airalo is here to take away the pains and stress of researching and seeking out the best roaming deal,” he explains.
Airalo, incubated at the Antler startup generator in Singapore, was started early this year by Ozdemir and his friend and fellow Turk, Duran Akçaylier.
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With a background in shipping and telecommunications, Ozdemir has in the past built two startups — Wossco, a Foodpanda for ship supplies, and Sim4Crew, a global mobile virtual network operator for sailors. Akçaylier has experience in developing web applications and building and managing development teams in both India and Turkey.
Ozdemir says he was confident of disrupting the telecom industry the moment Airalo was introduced to the market. “I have been in the telecom industry for the last three years and have dealt with physical SIM cards. When we introduced the eSIM technology, it was evident for me that this would disrupt the logistics of SIM cards, similar to how Netflix disrupted CDs and DVDs. We realise the world would need a Netflix for connectivity.”
How it works
Getting and installing an eSIM is simple: go to the Airalo.com site, or download its mobile app (Android and iOS ), choose your travel destination and purchase a local eSIM QR code for that country. Then you scan that QR code using your eSIM-compatible device, and the eSIM gets directly installed to the device.
(As of September 2019, the list of eSIM-compatible devices are iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, Nuu Mobile X5, Google Pixel 3 & 3XL, Google Pixel 4, Windows 10 PCs, Lenovo Yoga 630, HP Spectre Folio, iPad Air (3rd Generation), iPad Pro (3rd Generation), iPad Mini (5th Generation), and Gemini PDA).
To scan the QR code, go to ‘Settings’ of your device, tap ‘Cellular/Mobile’ and ‘Add Cellular/Mobile Plan’. Scan the QR Code and enter the 4-digit confirmation code when prompted.
Now, if you are experiencing issues scanning the QR code or receiving it, you can enter the code manually.
While you can have 15-20 eSIM plans, only one can be activated at a time. Switching between the cards is easy, and you can manage this using your device’s mobile/cellular settings.
At present, Airalo covers over 160 countries, including France, the US, Spain, China, Italy, Turkey, the UK, Germany, Mexico, Thailand, Hong Kong, Greece, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia. For this, the company has a partnership with as many local telecom operators around the world.
While opportunities are abundant, the startup is facing some challenges as the concept is still nascent. Continues Ozdemir: “The whole thing is very new. Plus, there are currently only 150 million devices in the market that are eSIM-capable. Educating the consumer is another challenge since not many people know that they are holding a magical device that can install a local digital eSIM in a couple of seconds.”
Getting a fresh ‘Surge’
Airalo is among the eight startups selected for the second edition of Surge, a rapid-scale programme launched this year by Sequoia India for early-stage startups in India and Southeast Asia.
Airalo’s journey to Surge was eventful. “After Antler’s Demo Day, we received a significant amount of investment interest from every VC in town. At that time, Sequoia was speaking to the companies from Antler’s cohort. Their analysts met with us, too.
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Strangely, we did not hear anything from Sequoia for ten days. I was a bit surprised because our project was attractive to VCs. I had this gut feeling and decided to approach the Sequoia team directly. They invited me to their office. They loved our idea, and we got into Surge in 20 minutes,” Ozdemir recounts the story.
As part of the programme, the startup raised US$1.75 million in seed funding, led by Surge with participation from Antler.
“A big reason for choosing Sequoia was their approach. While most VCs would adopt a structural approach to collaboration, Sequoia would go the extra mile to address our concerns and challenges,” he says. “As a startup founder, I appreciate the extent they would go to help us, including the phone calls at 2 in the morning.”
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