Amadeus Next believes that “connectivity in the community” is the missing link towards fostering more startup opportunities in travel and wants to build up an ecosystem to nurture travel tech startups.
Simon Akeroyd, vice president of corporate strategy and business development of Amadeus for Asia Pacific, said that Amadeus Next has been working with closely with APAC’s startup community over the past nine months and found an “unexpected” dearth of travel tech startups.
Speaking at the official launch of the Amadeus Next startup initiative during Echelon Thailand 2015 last week, he said that after 25 years of developing its own travel tech, Amadeus wants to give back by leveraging its wealth of travel data and connectivity – more than 1.6 billion data requests on the Amadeus system per day – to connect the missing links in APAC’s travel tech startup ecosystem.
“Rather than investing in companies and taking a stake, and trying to grow that one specific company, we’re building a community that people can grow in,” said Akeroyd. “It can’t be done alone. We need all the players to be present – VCs, investors, governments, organisations; the whole entity has to come together collaboratively around startups and travel tech.”
Amadeus Next, he said, can offer startups access to technology and solutions to build and validate the Minimum Viable Product; expertise in the form of mentoring and guidance; and reach through its customers and industry players.
In terms of funding, he said, Amadeus would help startups connect to investors and venture capital. Globally, Amadeus also has a dedicated Amadeus Venture Fund which offers early stage minority investments.
However, Amadeus Next does not plan to inject funding until further down the line. “We certainly won’t be taking equity in these startup companies in order to help them develop their ideas. If we want equity we will buy it later when they’re ready to scale. The initial focus is to help them grow, and to help the industry and community of Asia Pacific travel tech to grow.”
He said Amadeus Next is interested in all things travel tech – from mobile to sharing economy, payment to personalisation, and the Internet of Things. Early travel tech adopters include Klook, Orahi, Triposo and TopDocs, a platform for medical tourists to book a seamless medical travel experience.
Simon Akeroyd and Cassandra Italia: Getting advice and mentorship is valuable.
Cassandra Italia, CEO & Founder of TopDocs, said, “The advice and mentorship is the most valuable – to have industry experts advising and guiding you is gold, and the access to the technology – if we were to try and build that ourselves, it could take years.
“We’re able to test and validate our idea quickly, which is very important for a startup. We also get the connections, and access to the global network that Amadeus has.”
Partners include Hubba Thailand, Thailand’s startup leader in terms of co-working spaces and startup community, Techsauce, JungleVentures and CyberAgent Ventures, whose investment associate Thanachart Tangsriwong called Amadeus Next “instant access to all the gateways that the startup community can only dream of,” while Hubba’s Amarit Chareonphan dubbed it “something pivotal for the industry and to startups in the travel technology space.”
“Amadeus Next is not a short-term project or a one-off investment, it’s a long-term partnership and commitment to create a collaborative travel tech startup community in Asia Pacific,” concluded Akeroyd.
