Articles tagged “venture capital”

Blockchain and China are both areas that investors find interesting, but blockchain requires a long-term view and China is really tough, especially domestically. Meanwhile, investors are pouring money into artificial intelligence and virtual reality, and are trying to sort out which travel startups working in these fields will make it to the finish line.

It's nice when folks smarter than us land on the same dime. General Catalyst and Accomplice, the famed venture capital firms, join us in seeing promise in Freebird, which gives corporate travel agencies superpowers when it comes to rebooking travelers.

Despite the recent attempts at corporate venture capital by JetBlue, Booking.com, and other big players, many travel companies prefer to invest in startups via traditional venture funds instead.

Diving into the data of European VC reveals that while new tech-hubs are emerging, the landscape is still vastly dominated by the traditional trio of well-established tech-hubs. Namely London, Paris, and Berlin.

Venture capital's returns are usually achieved in the long-term, a great match for pension funds. However, European pension funds are still reluctant to allocate money to VC, considering it a risky venture.

Europe is finally warming up to the American-style, risk big and risk early venture investment culture that has given birth to so many tech megabrands out of Silicon Valley.

As a private company Airbnb isn't required to publicly disclose much when it comes to its finances. What is clear from analysing the accounts of Airbnb Payments UK Ltd., however, is just how much money is swilling about the company.

Travel startups take a dramatically different idea, creativity, exuberance, focus, money, connections, a dedication to team building, and a helluva lot of hubris. Depending on the moment, Kayak and Lola co-founder Paul English has all of the above in ever-changing quantities.

The funding balance of power is changing as 67 percent of venture capital deals for travel tech startups took place outside the U.S. in the first half of 2016, although that was 3 percentage points lower than the year-earlier period. Funding for mobile-travel startups jumped 500 percent.

A handful of major disruptive companies in travel and hospitality are enjoying sky-high valuations as they secure late-round funding, while an ever-increasing number of newer startups are vying for investment capital as they target more specific markets.