- Zerolook has raised 1.5 million Swiss francs ($1.9 million) to make AI-powered flight searches more cost-effective.
- The founders use machine learning to predict flight prices instead of relying on traditional real-time calculations.
- OAG estimates that by 2030, there could be up to 2 million searches for every ticket sold, compared to 10,000 to 20,000 today.
If you ask an AI agent to find the cheapest Greek island to visit in June, it will search thousands of combinations of islands, dates, and routes. Each search costs money, even if no one buys a ticket.
Airlines and travel agencies have to pay these costs. Zerolook, a company based in Zug, Switzerland, has raised 1.5 million Swiss francs ($1.9 million) in pre-seed funding to help lower these expenses.
The funding was led by Playfair, a London-based firm, with support from Vento Ventures, TrueSight Ventures, Alpha Venture, and angel investors from the tech, travel, and financial sectors.
“Airlines and travel agencies only get paid when someone books, but their technology providers charge them to answer searches and can penalise excessive search volumes. Most searches, however, are someone deciding, not someone booking. Ask for the cheapest Greek island in June, and one question becomes thousands: every island, every date and every routing. Today, many of those searches cost more to answer than they are worth. Zerolook is changing that,” said Simone Lini, CEO and co-founder of Zerolook.
How AI agents are causing a surge in search volumes
To price a single route, companies have to consider billions of possible itineraries and fare classes, all under rules that change constantly. Sellers pay these computing costs even if no one books a ticket.
According to OAG, the number of searches per ticket sold has grown from about 100–200 in the early 2000s to 10,000–20,000 today. This could rise to 2 million by 2030 as AI agents drive up search volumes.
Tech Funding News has covered Europe’s $52 billion AI agent economy. Other companies are also working on the search-cost problem: Tavily is focused on general web search, while Acai Travel is working on travel-agency operations rather than search infrastructure.
Founders who sat on both sides of the problem
Zerolook, run by Navifare AG in Zug, was started by Simone Lini and George Hadjiyiannis. Lini founded Waynaut, sold it to Lastminute.com, managed commercial and product work for their metasearch business, and led Google Flights partnerships in EMEA. Hadjiyiannis has a PhD in computer science from MIT and has led product and engineering teams at Kayak, Google, Nvidia, and eBay.
The company uses machine learning, trained on past fare, schedule, and availability data, to predict flight options and prices instead of answering every query in real time. Each prediction comes with a confidence score. Right now, traffic sellers can’t afford to answer every possible query.
“There is no technical reason that this has to be a problem holding back the entire industry. It is the result of legacy decisions made decades ago, some dating from around the same time as the introduction of the 8-track tape. The infrastructure is long overdue for modernisation, and we plan to do exactly that, but without requiring an overnight change in how the entire industry operates,” said Hadjiyiannis, CTO and co-founder of Zerolook.
Zerolook is joining a market led by companies like Amadeus, Duffel, and Skyscanner’s partner API, which all provide live results. Zerolook gives up some accuracy to handle more searches at a lower cost. This approach still needs to be tested in pilot programs.
The global market for flight data APIs was valued at $1.72 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach $4.67 billion by 2033, growing at a rate of 13.5% per year. Travel and booking platforms make up a large part of this spending, since online travel agencies and metasearch engines depend on third-party data systems.
Playfair invests in its third Zurich startup this year
Playfair, the lead investor, has also backed companies like Thought Machine, Orca AI, Protex AI, Nory, and Ascento. This year, they have led two other pre-seed rounds: Wassist, a WhatsApp commerce platform, and Exclaim Robotics, a Zurich startup making AI robots for data centre maintenance.
“We love huge global markets where complex problems threaten the viability of existing business models. Zerolook is a perfect fit — building in the global travel market, addressing the challenge of surging AI-driven search volumes for flight tickets, and solving an existential problem for airlines and OTAs who are facing significant margin pressure and failing to capture revenue opportunities. We’re excited to partner with Simone and George, two world-class operators in this industry, to build the necessary infrastructure for an agentic world,” said Chris Smith, managing partner at Playfair.
The new funding will help Zerolook launch its first API and set up a machine learning team in Zurich. They plan to run pilot programs with online travel partners who have signed letters of intent.
It’s still unclear if their predictions will be accurate enough for airlines or if this is just a temporary fix until the main systems are updated. The pilot programs should give more answers.
