Holafly

What is Holafly?

Holafly is a private company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, that provides eSIM connectivity for international travelers across more than 200 destinations.

Who owns Holafly?

Holafly is owned by its founders Pedro Maiquez and Yingyan Hu. It is privately held and has never raised disclosed venture capital or been acquired.

Is Holafly a public company?

No. Holafly is privately held and has not listed shares on any exchange.

When was Holafly founded?

Holafly was founded in 2017 in Murcia, Spain, by Pedro Maiquez and Yingyan Hu. It launched eSIM services in 2018 after initially selling physical SIM cards.

Where is Holafly based?

Holafly is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with offices in Medellin, Valencia, Bangkok, and Lima and a workforce distributed across nearly 50 countries.

Is Holafly legit?

Yes. Holafly is a legitimate company that has sold more than 12 million eSIMs and operates as one of the three largest independent travel eSIM providers alongside Airalo and Nomad.

Holafly was founded in 2017 in Murcia, Spain, after Pedro Maiquez and Yingyan Hu experienced the frustration of losing connectivity while traveling in Thailand. The insight was straightforward: travelers needed a way to buy data plans for foreign destinations before or during a trip, without navigating local carriers or paying punitive roaming rates.

The initial product was physical SIM cards sold to travelers ahead of departure, a model that worked but carried the friction and logistics of shipping physical inventory. The pivotal shift came in 2018, when the company joined the Lanzadera accelerator program and launched eSIM technology. Activation by QR code removed shipping entirely and transformed the business from mail-order SIM seller to digital connectivity platform.

Expansion accelerated through the early 2020s. The company moved into France and Germany, opened offices in Valencia and Medellin between 2019 and 2021, then added locations in Lima and Bangkok. The corporate headquarters relocated from Spain to Dublin, placing the company in an EU jurisdiction with a favorable corporate environment while maintaining operational roots in Spain and Latin America. By 2022 the company had committed to carbon neutrality, citing the elimination of plastic SIM waste as an environmental benefit of its digital model, and launched iOS and Android apps for eSIM management.

By 2026 Holafly had sold more than 12 million eSIMs across more than 200 destinations and employed approximately 800 people distributed across nearly 50 countries. The growth came entirely from operations rather than external funding, making it one of the larger bootstrapped companies in the travel technology category.

Holafly committed to carbon neutrality in 2022, framing the eSIM transition itself as environmentally beneficial by eliminating the plastic waste and shipping emissions of physical SIM cards. The company cites the millions of plastic SIMs discarded annually as the baseline its digital product avoids.

The commitment is a corporate pledge rather than third-party certification. No independent audit of the carbon neutral claim is published, and the company does not hold B Corp status. Its distributed remote workforce reduces physical office footprint but creates no unusual ethical exposure.

No major regulatory action or scandal is on record against Holafly. Category-level complaints that apply include occasional connectivity issues where underlying carrier partnerships underperform in specific destinations, customer service response times during peak travel seasons, and the standard eSIM problem that users on older devices sometimes struggle with installation.