This Berlin Venture Fund Backed Airbnb Early On: Where It’s Placing Bets Now

Despite pandemic challenges, the travel sector is positioned to pop with investor love. Lakestar, a Berlin-based venture capital fund, wants to get a piece of the next big travel startup as the sector's winners and losers emerge from the pandemic. Remarkably, Lakestar is even backing consumer-facing startups at a time when many investors have soured on companies that compete with the global giants, favoring business-to-business startups instead. Lakestar buys stakes in startups in all types of industries worldwide. But travel is a specialty. It has invested more euros in travel startups based in Europe than any other venture investor. Its well-timed investment in Airbnb generated fat paper returns when that startup went public in December. Feeling emboldened from recent windfalls, Lakestar upped the ante this year. It launched a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, with the intention to take a startup public. (For context, see Skift's explainer on SPACs.) In recent we