Henrik Zillmer is the CEO and founder of AirHelp, a flight claim company that takes care of air passenger rights for delayed, cancelled, or overbooked flight compensation.
Education
Henrik Zillmer earned a bachelor’s degree in international business at Copenhagen Business School in 2006 and a master’s degree in E-Business at Copenhagen Business School and IT University of Copenhagen in 2009.
Early career
Zillmer was a first lieutenant at The Danish Artillery from October 2000 to June 2002. As the first lieutenant, Zillmer was responsible for education in the function of 34 privates and four sergeants over a nine-month term. In August 2006, Zillmer worked as an associate at Innovation Center Denmark in California, where he facilitated the entry of technology-based Danish companies into Silicon Valley, connecting research, capital and companies, and innovated business models and market strategies.
Zillmer left the firm in 2007 and worked at ScalePoint Technologies Ltd. as a product manager. Zillmer was the head of ScalePoint’s primary product EasyClaims Content. Zillmer was also responsible for product development, project management, product roadmap, IT prioritization, quality assurance, and idea validation; and overall responsible for product strategy and performance.
In September 2011, Zillmer became the director of product management at Rocket Internet, where he helped launch nine web shops in nine countries within six months. The nine countries include Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Australia. Zillmer was also responsible for regional product management and business development.
AirHelp
The idea first started when Zillmer’s flight got delayed for more than three hours, and he wasn’t informed about his passenger rights. When Zillmer found out about his customer rights, he was hit by a maze of links on the airline website when wanting to submit his claim. Afterward, Zillmer did not hear back from the airline, and the AirHelp was born.
In January 2013, Zillmer (CEO) co-founded AirHelp, a technology company that offers legal services to passengers who have experienced a canceled, delayed or overbooked flight, along with Nicolas Michaelsen (CMO) and Greg Roodt as (CTO), formerly of Moshi Monsters. Skype entrepreneur and investor Morten Lund, and Poul Oddershede (CFO), later joined the founders.
Although the team only offers claims on flights to or from Europe, AirHelp is based in Hong Kong. Zillmer discovered that it is the cheapest place to build a corporation. The city also has friendly taxation laws on revenue produced outside of Hong Kong, stamp tax on investments, and general value-added tax on services offered.
Held in Las Vegas in May 2014, AirHelp won the Spark prize in the first Collision Conference. The company won a cash prize of $10,000 plus a fund of services, for which more than 30 startups competed, from over 500 entries. In May 2014, AirHelp was recognized as the best Danish startup of the year in the Scandinavian Startup Awards.
In 2014, TechCrunch introduced AirHelp as a new addition to YCombinator. In March 2014, AirHelp began providing services in the United States. AirHelp has headquarters across the world, offers support in 16 languages, available in 30 countries, and employs more than 550 employees globally. In October 2015, for the first time, AirHelp released the AirHelp Score, a worldwide ranking of airlines, which takes into account, for example, on-time performance.
The AirHelp service is available in the United States, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom / Ireland, Finland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece.
Funding rounds
In March 2014, AirHelp raised $221,000 in a seed round from investors include Zillionize Angel, YCombinator, Westcott LLC, R-301 Capital, Cherubic Ventures, 10x Group, Wayne Chang, Rouven Dresselhaus, and Badr Al-Rumaih. In April 2014, AirHelp raised an undisclosed amount in a venture round from investors Pegasus Tech Ventures, Hard Yaka, and Saad Alsogair. In July 2016, AirHelp secured an undisclosed amount in another seed round funding from Marco Valta.
In August 2016, AirHelp raised $12 million in a Series A round from investors, including Wolsey Ventures, Widening Venture, Westcott LLC, Upslope Ventures, U-Start, New Europe Ventures, LLC, Khosla Ventures, Ithaca Investments, and Galvanize Ventures. Other investors that joined the investment include Naval Ravikant, Jimmy Maymann, and Evans Williams.
In October 2017, AirHelp raised an undisclosed amount in a venture round from its lead investor Nordic Eye Venture Capital. In May 2018, AirHelp secured investment from lead investor TempoCap. In May 2019, AirHelp secured an undisclosed amount from H14.
AirHelp is funded by 28 investors. AirHelp has $4.6 million in estimated revenue annually. AirHelp competes with refund.me.