I was speaking with an investor on the phone recently.
I described that we were raising capital to build Travel Startups Incubator into a $1B global business.
I could tell right away he didn’t know much about travel technology.
He had a lot of knowledge, passion, and money, but no real travel experience.
That’s OK because I knew he was a savvy investor.
He asked, “Matt, how does Travel Startups Incubator know what to invest in?”
What a great question.
Surprisingly, we aren’t asked that nearly enough.
Initially, we literally have four questions to which we are looking to uncover the answers from founders.
Founders write the answers to these four questions in our incubator application.
We don’t tell anyone what they are because then we figure everyone might just tell us what we want to hear.
If you clear all four then we get serious.
We believe we can tell fairly quickly whether what you are building can be big.
Here’s a hint: (more…)
Travel Startups Incubator is pleased to announce our investment in TraknProtect. Designed to ensure hotels know where their physical assets are located in the hotel at all times, TraknProtect’s proprietary technology provides real-time location of all the assets in your hotel.
TraknProtect is an inventory tracking and analytics platform that allows hotels to know in real time where key assets are located and quickly respond to guest requests for such assets. TraknProtect uses Bluetooth beacons and Bluetooth/WiFi hubs to communicate where items such as rollaway beds, cribs, housekeeping carts, bellhop carts, microwaves, fridges and more can be found throughout a hotel property.
Hotels using the TraknProtect system not only improve employee productivity and customer service but also exceed guest expectations by responding to immediate needs for extras in a surprisingly timely manner. Increased security of hotel property is yet another benefit.
The Chicago-based TraknProtect team includes co-founder and CEO Parminder Batra, co-founder and COO Sagar Patel, and CTO Fadi Kahhaleh. Since starting to work with hotels in 2014, Batra and Patel have partnered with hospitality leader Hyatt Hotels Corporation, which is also based in Chicago. This partnership was recently featured in the Chicago Tribune article “Startup will Help Hyatt Housekeeping Find You a Crib,” which provides details on the TraknProtect program at the 1,200-room Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. (more…)
Startups, Corporate Partners and Investors please come meet the Travel Startups Incubator Managing Partners Matt & Nicole Zito at Travel Technology Europe February 24 & 25 at Olympia in London. We are stand #120E on the 2nd floor in the Disrupt startup area. You can attend the conference for free. Yes I said free! http://traveltechnologyeurope.com/register
Vote for the top 5 Business Travel Startups here. Go FlitWays!
TTE is one of the best travel tech conferences we have ever gone to. Last year in 2015 over 5,000 people attended. See you there!
Show floor of Travel Technology Europe London 2015
We recently announced our entry into India as a seed-stage travel technology with TravHQ.com a travel news media site for Indian travel tech startups.
India is a large global market. 1.2B people with estimates of 300M-500M people coming into the middle class. As the Indian middle class grows so does travel as the saying goes.
Matt Zito, Managing Partner at Travel Startups Incubator says, “35% of the applications received at Travel Startups Incubator are from Indian travel tech startups. We currently have 2 offer agreements out and will be investing directly in India within the next 30-days. We are truly excited about the opportunity. We love the Indian startup work ethic and have found most of the founders we’ve talked to have character.”
InnoveLaw in Mumbai lead by Suhas Baliga will be representing Travel Startups Incubator on legal aspects of the investment deals.
Travel Startups Incubator is looking for founding teams (2-3 people) coming out of India’s leading IT colleges and universities, where the founders are building 100% of the product and working full-time on their startup.
In conjunction with investing in Indian travel tech startups, Travel Startups Incubator has joined Amadeus Next the regional initiative of Amadeus to build and foster the leading travel tech community in Asia Pacific. The two organizations will collaborate on deals and to help refer startups between the two programs.
EyeforTravel’s Startup Village consists of a morning bootcamp featuring conferences sessions with top travel entreprenuers as well as an afternoon Start-up Awards competition during which 12 travel start-ups will deliver a pitch to the judges, investors and entire audience present at the event.
The start-up village will take place at the Hotel Nikko, in the heart of San Francisco (just one block from Union Square!) as part of EyeforTravel’s San Francisco Summit 2016. It’s a great opportunity to meet entreprenuers, investors and judges comprised of social media, mobile and travel experts. All are keen to examine which start-up has what it takes to make it in the cut throat travel industry.
Those wishing to enter the startup awards must enter by January 31st in order to be selected to participate at the event. (more…)
