Flightradar24’s PE Deal & Founders’ Story

In 2006, two Swedish aviation geeks, Mikael Robertsson and Olov Lindberg, set out to build a small side project. The idea was simple: create a flight-tracking tool to drive traffic to their travel website. What began as a niche hobby—first under names like Flygbilligt.com and Flygradar.nu—quickly grew into something much bigger. By 2009, they had opened up the platform to crowdsourced data from ADS-B receivers, letting anyone with some hardware at home contribute live flight information.

The turning point came in 2010, when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted. News outlets suddenly needed a way to show grounded planes and disrupted skies, and Flightradar24’s real-time maps went viral. From then on, every aviation crisis—from the disappearance of MH370 to the downing of MH17—brought global attention to their platform. What started as a hobby project became a household name for journalists, travelers, and even airlines themselves.

Today, Flightradar24 is run out of Stockholm, with Robertsson and Lindberg still deeply involved alongside CEO Fredrik Lindahl. The business has quietly become a rare tech outlier: highly profitable, with SEK 420 million (€37m) in revenue and SEK 218 million (€19m) in profit last year. Its massive network of receivers, combined with subscription services and data products, has made it indispensable across aviation and media.

That success just attracted outside capital. In 2025, the founders agreed to sell a 35% stake to London-based private equity firm Sprints Capital, valuing the company at roughly $500 million. The founders and management still hold the majority, but the deal gives them fresh firepower to expand globally. It’s a classic Scandinavian story: what began as a tinkering project in a niche market is now a world-leading data company, and one of the most profitable startups to come out of Sweden.