Across every part of the economy, technology has driven greater transparency for businesses and consumers by enabling access to robust, accurate, and (often) instantly accessible data. At Silversmith, we’ve seen this trend play out within real estate (Digital Map Products), healthcare (Iodine Software), telecom (Comlinkdata), digital music (DistroKid), eCommerce (Zonos), and many other categories, with market-defining companies being built on the back of an exceptional information advantage.

While Software-as-a-Service models can – and often do, by virtue of their delivery model – produce compelling data moats, we’ve also seen enduring data businesses built by aggregating hard-to-acquire datasets within niche vertical markets, often growing into the de-facto intelligence standards for entire industries. Along that theme we were excited to recently announce our latest investment in JETNET, a company building just that standard for the business and commercial aviation market.

For many years, the process of buying, financing, and operating aircraft was a murky one – lacking any real data to properly inform buyers, sellers, and owners. Out of that void JETNET emerged. Initially founded in 1988 as an aircraft listing service, JETNET has spent 34 years building the industry’s most comprehensive and accurate market intelligence database through meticulous primary research and deep integrations with manufacturers, owners, financing companies, and third-party service providers. In doing so, they are putting the power back in the hands of their customers by democratizing access to real-time, hyper-accurate transaction data and asset intelligence – in much the same way Kelley Blue Book did for the car-buying experience or Zillow did for homes.

JETNET is a terrific example of why we at Silversmith love data businesses: it is deeply entrenched in the workflows of its customers, powering the day-to-day operations of thousands of businesses around the globe. We were amazed (but perhaps not surprised) to learn that nearly half of JETNET subscribers log in to the platform daily! And more importantly, as we got to know JETNET better, we found that customers don’t just use their software, they love it – and in our experience, when you find companies with that type of customer passion good things usually happen.

Central to this product and customer strength is the JETNET team, including Greg Fell, Michele Husnay, and Paul Cardarelli. We hope to support the continued building of a world-class team to help JETNET double down on customer success, new product development, and strategic expansion initiatives.

As our partnership with JETNET takes flight, we are looking forward to the journey ahead – working together to build a more transparent information economy for the entire aviation industry.