The sky’s the limit for My Sky

“Human expertise and software” has proved a winning combination for My Sky.

The Swiss company, which was only launched in 2015, won a bronze Stevie Award last year and a Sapphire Pegasus Business Aviation Award earlier this year. It can now add gold and silver Stevie Awards to its treasure trove, thanks to its “revolutionary” approach to business aviation finance.

My Sky’s founders say they are “very excited” to have won these latest awards, which add value to their unique proposition of a software platform combined with a team of financial experts.

My Sky has won a gold Stevie Award in the start-up of the year – business services industry category, and a silver Stevie Award in the tech start-up of the year – services category, of the 14th annual International Business Awards this month. The awards will be presented at a gala banquet in Barcelona in October.

The company was up against more than 3,900 nominations from organisations in more than 60 countries.

“Our team is very excited to receive this very important and prestigious prize,” said My Sky CEO and co-founder Kirill Kim.

“This is our third international recognition within just 12 months: in August 2016, we won a bronze Stevie Award, then a Sapphire Pegasus Business Aviation Award for Innovation in April 2017, and now we have reached the peak with gold and silver Stevie Awards in both categories we have applied for.”

Stevie Award winners are determined by panels of international business executives. “The IBA judges from across the world were highly impressed with the nominations they received this year,” said Stevie Awards founder and president Michael Gallagher. “With the level of achievement documented in the nominations from 60 nations, the Stevie Awards are proud to honour organisations that demonstrate a high level of achievement in a variety of industries.”

And the judges had plenty of praise for My Sky. “A highly innovative product,” said one, while another said: “Excellent job with applying innovative practices to the private jet industry. As a start-up, it has impressive growth numbers and customer retention rates. The company has created a blue ocean strategy to create its own niche area, while minimising competition, and thus reaping the rewards of accelerated growth. Well done!”

My Sky, which was called My Jet until it rebranded earlier this year, was developed in 2014 by Kim and fellow co-founder Christopher Marich, who’s also the company’s global strategy director. It offers business jet owners an IT platform that collects, digitises, verifies analyses and stores all their financial information, allowing them to keep control of how much they spend on running and maintaining their aircraft.

My Sky also provides a benchmarking tool, which allows owners to see how much their peers are paying for similar aircraft and similar routes. This also enables them to keep a tighter rein on their costs.

Marich told Corporate Jet Investor that business jet owners can find it difficult to keep the cost of running an aircraft under control because they receive differently-formulated invoices in different parts of the world.

“On the financial side, the industry is not very regulated. So if you’re in Geneva, you’ll get an invoice with six different items on it. If you’re in Moscow, you’ll get an invoice with 30 different items on it. And they’re for the same things. My business partner and I set My Sky up because we realised it was hard for business jet owners to understand what was going on, and that many were ending up paying more money than they should.

“Making the process more efficient, transparent and direct allows them to save money.”

So My Sky developed a SaaS platform, supported by an 80-strong team of experts including in-house auditors, analysts and IT specialists, that gives owners access to information about how much they and their peers are paying to use and maintain their aircraft.

The company had “worked hard” to develop a methodology that allowed users to see more clearly what they were spending, said Marich, and to see the averages being spent by other owners around the world for similar aircraft and similar routes.

“Our combination of software and a team of experts is what makes us unique,” he added.

My Sky currently has around 50 clients in EMEA, and is looking to grow its markets in the US and China. It is also due to release a second version of its software in the autumn, offering features that the company hopes will make the platform more user-friendly and jet ownership “easier and more transparent”.

“[Winning the Stevie Awards] is a big recognition for the team that’s working hard and it validates our business model – being validated by experts [on the judging panels] gives us a lot of confidence that what we’re doing is good. It pushes us further to develop our product for our clients,” Marich said.