Why Private Equity Firm Certares Is Dabbling in Travel Venture Investing

Certares was founded as a private equity firm in 2012 and has gone on to invest heavily in travel companies — most prominently American Express Global Business Travel, Hertz Corp., airline group Latam, and Liberty Tripadvisor Holdings. But the New York-based investments specialist also has a fledgling venture investment practice.

Chantal Noble Haldorsen leads Certares’ venture lead strategy, which in recent months helped with a $19 million Series A round in UFODrive, a rental service for electric vehicles, that Certares and one of its portfolio companies, Hertz Corp., co-led.

Certares, whose leadership includes alumni from JP Morgan Chase, Sabre and One Equity Partners, calls its approach a "strategy" rather than a formal practice.

"We don't definitely consider what we're doing to be corporate venture," said Haldorsen, a Harvard MBA who previously worked at Torch Capital, an early stage consumer venture capital firm.

The firm's interest in venture investing is related to what it's doing in its much larger private equity business, but with an eye to previously untapped small and niche businesses.

"Just being able to play across all stages of a company's lifecycle is something we wanted to lean into," Haldorsen said.

The company is today mainly looking at startups in North America and Europe.

"We're focused primarily on companies with a proven 'product-market fit' as shown by demonstrating meaningful traction," Haldorsen said.

"We have insight into the strategic priorities