Ennea: Connecting the dots to deliver innovation in travel

ennea capital partnershas established itself as an Investment and Advisory firm supporting the travel and mobility industry in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Amadeus veteran, entrepreneur and newly appointed General Partner Alexander Trieb has recently joined forces with ennea founder Jan-Frederik Valentin. Bringing decade long experience in the travel industry with over a dozen investments, ennea are positioned as the partner of choice for start-ups and scale-ups.

We have over a dozen investments in the travel space; we’re also advising companies on mergers and acquisitions. However, our philosophy revolves around understanding the business from top-to-bottom. This has led us to capture the entire travel space from the very early seed stage to potential IPOs.

More recently, we have also diversified into mobility, which is anything that changes our mobility pattern. Think ridesharing platforms, E-scooters, bikes, vertical lift-off vehicles etc., as we feel that there is a strong connection in this space with travel.  Given that we’re already in that space, we see a lot of opportunity. Whether you’re a start-up in travel or mobility, the fundamentals are the same: you need to have rigorous processes, be able to pivot quickly and be prepared to learn from your mistakes.

At Ennea, we spend a lot of time assessing travel start-ups’ partnership potential for success based on industry challenges, and the value start-ups can bring in this regard. What we have found is that there are few key ingredients for success in the VC game:

1. Team – having a strong team is a must. One person with a brilliant idea is not enough to make things happen but a strong team working in unison is key.
2. Investors and partners – equally important, both these stakeholders have the resources and networks to turn an idea to reality and get it into the market quickly.
3. Timing – Quite hard to measure, but as we have operated in this space for a while, we have developed a sense of timing – knowing what can work and at the right moment.

In Amadeus we have found a leading travel technology company that has strong connections throughout the industry and understands how vital these ingredients are to succeed. Start-ups are the lifeblood of innovation and Amadeus actively identifiesthose with the potential to be the next big travel player and helps them scale up, by providing them with expertise, content and technology, and then find a place for these start-ups in the Live Travel Space. As a result, we see a close fit between both companies in how we advise and help start-ups scale to eventually generate real value in the travel industry and its stakeholders.

In our passion to make travel better, together we are looking for the next unicorn by connecting promising start-ups with the industry via the Live Travel Space.