ITB Travel Tech Startup Scene
Summary
This is Part 1 of a 3-part Travel Technology Startup Session at ITB Berlin 2026, held on the Orange Stage during the Marketing and Distribution Track. Host Lea Jordan moderates a panel with three investors and entrepreneurs before transitioning into live startup pitches.
The panel features three guests: Yuen Suzanna Chiu Lee, Head of Amadeus Ventures at Amadeus IT Group (bringing the corporate venture perspective from one of travel's largest technology players, with over 10 years of investment experience); Michael Treskow, Partner at Eight Roads Ventures (focused on European and Israeli technology scale-ups, representing the growth capital lens); and Lars Mangelsdorf, VP of Spend at Perk (formerly co-founder of Yokoy, a fintech acquired by Perk, now also a seed investor running founder events in Switzerland).
On investor sentiment in 2026, all three panelists converge on a single word: AI. Treskow describes a reset moment where problems 'solved seven times over' in travel discovery and planning are being fundamentally redone because of the new technology wave. He notes that areas like travel discovery and planning that seemed mature are now attracting fresh entrepreneurial attention.
Mangelsdorf, drawing on his experience co-founding and scaling Yokoy (which raised 80 million euros and hired 100 people in 12 months), says the market has shifted dramatically from 'grow at all costs' to disciplined execution — strong unit economics, low churn, and efficient customer onboarding now matter far more than in previous cycles. He explicitly warns that building with AI is table stakes and not sufficient on its own to attract funding.
Chiu Lee, who has been investing for over 10 years and backed one of the earliest NLP companies before the first AI wave, draws the historical arc through blockchain and NFTs as cautionary context. Her firm's core filter remains unchanged: is the startup solving a real business problem and generating genuine willingness to pay from either travelers or providers?
Treskow outlines how the classic growth-stage evaluation criteria have been rewritten by AI. Teams are now dramatically smaller — he suggests a 50-person company may achieve what previously required 1,000 people. The total addressable market framing has expanded because automation now displaces labor spend, not just software spend. Metrics expectations have simultaneously become more demanding: companies that were 'top quartile a few years ago would be okay today,' with faster growth and lower burn now required to stand out.
Chiu Lee identifies a key new question that has been added to the traditional 'will Expedia or Booking copy you?' investor screen: 'Is Claude or OpenAI going to do the same thing tomorrow?' She says the critical differentiator for AI-native startups is what proprietary business logic, domain knowledge, or network effects they bring that foundation models cannot replicate.
Treskow's top founder advice is explicitly contrarian: 'The number one mistake is to try to figure out what investors want to hear and adjust to that.' He emphasizes that authenticity and deep personal conviction about the problem are what investors actually screen for at the growth stage.
The second half of the session features a live pitch from Danielle Finch, co-founder and CEO of Aquera, a startup building distribution infrastructure for community-based tourism organizations (CBTOs). Key pitch data: 90% of travelers want to experience life like a local; 69% want to leave a place better than they found it; the CBTO market is growing 2.4x faster than general travel; total market opportunity is $5.6 billion; projected ARR of $33 million by year five. Aquera launched its pilot in September in Uganda and Rwanda, has digitized over 170 products, went from LOI to live inventory with its first distribution partner in six weeks, and is raising $590K in a pre-seed SAFE. The team includes an MS graduate from Carnegie Mellon and backgrounds from Michelin and HomeToGo. The startup is targeting 11 countries by year-end and signing its first tourism board partnership the night of the pitch. Panelists gave largely positive feedback, with key questions around AI replicability of supply enablement and business model clarity (B2B vs. B2C).
Key Takeaways
- •All three panelists independently converged on 'AI' as the single word describing 2026 travel tech investor sentiment. Treskow elaborated that this represents a genuine technology wave reset, not just hype: 'Things that we thought were solved or done in a certain way are being rediscovered,' specifically citing travel discovery and planning as areas attracting fresh investment despite previously seeming mature.
- •Lars Mangelsdorf cautioned that AI alone is insufficient to attract funding in 2026. The market has shifted decisively from 'growing at all costs' to disciplined execution — metrics, profitability, customer onboarding success, and low churn are now the primary signals investors want to see. He noted that at Yokoy, the team raised 80 million euros and hired 100 people in 12 months, a playbook he explicitly said 'you would not do today anymore.'
- •Treskow identified a structural change in how growth-stage investors evaluate teams: 'Teams are significantly smaller nowadays than they used to be because you can do much more with less.' He suggested a 50-person company can now achieve outcomes that previously required 1,000 employees, fundamentally changing what 'strong team' means at the growth stage.
- •Total addressable market calculations have expanded because AI automation now displaces labor spend, not just software spend. Treskow explained: 'Our addressable market is significantly larger because we're increasing the scope of automation beyond what software was doing to something that people were doing.' This allows startups to make larger market size arguments than the previous software-only lens allowed.
- •Metrics benchmarks have become dramatically more demanding. Treskow stated directly: 'A company that whose metrics used to be top quartile a couple of years ago today would be okay.' The new standard requires faster growth AND lower burn simultaneously, making it harder to stand out even with previously strong performance.
- •Susanna Chiu Lee, with 10+ years of investment experience at Amadeus Ventures, described the key new question added to the traditional investor screen. Historically the question was 'will Booking or Expedia copy you?' or 'will Google do this tomorrow?' In 2026, the question has become: 'Is Claude or OpenAI going to do the same thing tomorrow?' Founders must articulate what proprietary business logic, domain knowledge, or network effects they bring that foundation models cannot replicate.
Transcript
Welcome back. Let's groove into our afternoon, right, ladies and gentlemen? Can I hear you quickly a little bit more? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Welcome, ITV. [laughter] Oh, yeah. You make it easy for me to love the ITB community. Thanks again for being here. Thanks for joining us at the orange stage on the second day of the ITB convention. And we are diving into our almost last session here in the travel technology startup session. So keep up the energy and I hand over to Leia. [music] All right....
