Our Investment Strategy

We believe that there is a generally recognized gap in the funding continuum between technology validation or pre-seed funds, and venture capital funds more focused on "early-stage". Further, there are very few funds in the world dedicated to travel technology, all investing at later stages than proposed by the Fund. As organizations that are focused on pre-seed funding commit increasing amounts of capital to new ventures, the demand for seed and early stage travel technology funding is expected to grow as well, dramatically increasing the funding gap. The Fund intends to fill a portion of this funding gap by making "angel" investments in companies at this seed and early stage of development. At this stage, it is expected that a company's underlying technology will have been validated and working product prototypes will be under development. Also at this stage, commercial market performance parameters will just be beginning to be defined so that a relatively clear understanding of what remains in terms of commercial product development will be emerging. Also at this stage, the company will increasingly be focusing on market opportunities and working towards acquiring its first significant paying customer. Management will just be beginning to ramp up operations in anticipation of significant future revenue growth. The Fund will seek opportunities in which a strong management team is in place to guide development of the core technology and the organization needed to realize the company's market potential. The core technology must offer substantial and sustainable differentiation and have defensible intellectual property protection. Ultimately, our goal is to support those companies that have the ability to successfully grow to a level where venture capital funds are attracted to provide the significant additional capital needed for full market commercialization at significant incremental valuations. More generally, the Fund will look for investments where it is able to:

  • Co-invest with Investor Partners and their personal investor networks;
  • Co-invest with other angel and seed-stage venture capital funds.

Concentration on Regional Technology Strengths:

Our Partners' academic, business and technical backgrounds and experience cut across many travel technology and travel services sectors, and bring valuable insight into the strength of the underlying technologies and management of the companies we consider for investment. We reach out to our extensive network of higher education institutions worldwide and hotel group executives in our network as well as the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals, HFTP, industry association, (which is a limited partner in the Fund and an active supporter of its mission) to help identify and evaluate opportunities. Further, we continue to seek Partners that bring geographic diversity to our PARTNERSHIP to enhance the probability of identifying investment opportunities and building a broad base of contacts and functional and technical expertise. As a result, we encourage PARTNERSHIP from investors in all parts of the world. The extent to which we can exploit our regional technology and Partner strengths, the greater the probability of having a meaningful economic impact in travel technology through job and wealth creation.