Top 50 Travel Angel Investors in November 2024

Currently a Venture Partner at Technology Crossover Ventures, Erik has previously served as CEO of Expedia, Inc. and IAC/InterActiveCorp's travel division, IAC Travel (including online travel businesses Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Classic Custom Vacations and Interval International), CEO at Butterfield & Robinson and CEO atTerrapass, Inc.His prior positions at Expedia Inc. included SVP of Marketing & Planning and various roles in product management. Erik is an active private company investor, serving on boards including Glassdoor, Zillow, Siteminder, Liftopia and Terrapass, and participates in non-profit boards including EcoAmerica, The Cutting Ball Theatre and the US National Council of the World Wildlife Fund.Erik holds a bachelor's degree in English and certificate in theatre from Princeton University and a master's in business administration from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.

Jason Calacanis is the Founder and CEO of Inside.com and Launch. He previously worked at Weblogs as a Co-Founder and CEO. Jason Calacanis attended Fordham University.

Melih is one of the pioneer Internet entrepreneurs in Turkey. Born in Istanbul, he studied Computer Engineering and MBA at Bogazici University. After one year of professional experience in Citibank, Melih founded yemeksepeti.com with his partners in 2000. Yemeksepeti.com became the online food delivery giant first in Turkey, and then in Middle Eastand Eastern Europe. As a co-founder, Melih has acted as CTO of the company until 2013 and as Board Member until May 2015, when the company was acquired by Delivery Hero writing one of the biggest Internet exit stories in the region. Melih has been selected an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2007. Since 2011 he has been an active angel investor in internet and technology companies with more than 30 investments. He is one of the cofounders of Galata Business Angels, which is one of the first business angel networks in Turkey. He is a founding member of EO Turkey. Melih lives in London now with his family and continues to invest in tech start-ups globally.

Spencer Rascoff is the Co-Founder and the Chairman of Board at Pacaso.

Hugh Crean is the current Chief Executive Officer of Operix. He previously worked at JPK Capital as an Operating Partner. Hugh Crean attended Boston College.

Paul E Sevinç is Co-Founder & CTO at Doodle.

Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.

Peter M. Kern has been a director of Expedia since completion of the IAC/Expedia Spin-Off.Peter Kern is a Managing Partner of InterMedia Partners, LP, a private equity firm.Prior to joining InterMedia, Mr. Kern was Senior Managing Director and Principal of Alpine Capital LLC.Prior to Alpine Capital, Mr. Kern founded Gemini Associates in1996 and served as President from its inception through its merger with Alpine Capital in 2001.Prior to founding Gemini Associates,Peter Kern was at the Home Shopping Network and Whittle Communications.Since April 2013,Peter Kern has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hemisphere Media Group, Inc., a publicly-traded Spanish-language media company.Mr. Kern also serves on the boards of a number of private companies, including Televicentro of Puerto Rico, LLC, Luxury Retreats International Holdings, Inc. and Cine Latino, Inc.Mr. Kern holds a B.S. degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Yusuke Sato is the Co-Representative and Co-Founder of Pulit.

Kotaro Chiba is the founder of ChibaDojo Fund. Kotaro Chiba attended Keio University.

Thomas D. Lehrman is the Board Director at Gerson Lehrman Group.He is a Co - Founder and former Co - Chief Executive Officer of Gerson Lehrman Group, Inc. Thomas Lehrman most recently served as Director of the Office of WMD Terrorism at the U.S. Department of State and previously as a member of the professional staff on the President's WMDCommission. Earlier in his career, he worked as a Financial Analyst at Tiger Management. He is also a Co - Founder & Board Member of the Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School and the Hillhouse Scholars Program. Thomas Lehrman is a Chartered Financial Analyst and graduated from Duke University and Yale Law School.

Andreas is a German serial entrepreneur and angel investor having invested in more than 150 international startups.Andreas co-founded his first internet company Omniga in 1999 and, after reaching profitability within 2 years, grew it to a venture builder focused on B2C subscription models with more than 200 employees when he stepped back from hisactive roles in 2012.In the same year Andreas started investing in startups and later also got engaged in the Spanish ecosystem as the founder of Marbella Tech Angels, a network of more than 160 investors, founders & mentors living around Marbella. Andreas is also co-founder of the Global Super Angels Club, a platform for angel investors usually investing six-figure euro amounts in startups, supporting its more than 70 members to improve their deal flow and speed up their search for like-minded co-investors.Andreas received several awards incl. the Best European Early Stage Investor 2018 award from the European Business Angel Network (EBAN) and the Best Business Angel 2020 award at the Spanish National Business Angel Conference.

Barney currently serves on the boards of directors of United Airlines and RealSelf. At United Airlines he serves on the Finance, Audit and Public Responsibility committees. Barney has an extensive track record operating and governing large and rapidly growing technology-enabled companies. He has particular experience in the fields of loyalty andsegmentation, experiment-driven optimization, lean process improvement, cybersecurity, and transportation safety.Barney served as Chief Operating Officer of Uber from January 2018 to July 2019. As COO he was responsible for the company’s global ridesharing business, leading operations, strategy, marketing, customer support, safety and insurance in over 60 countries, and for the company's food-delivery business Uber Eats. Barney launched consumer and driver loyalty programs, increased focus on high-value segments, extended the platform to embrace lower cost transport modes in emerging markets, and significantly reduced trip defect rates. He led a 15,000 person organization during a critical phase in the company’s history, and played a significant role in the company’s May 2019 IPO, which raised $8B.Prior to Uber, Barney served as CEO and a director of Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW) from January 2009 to November 2015, leading a turnaround that culminated in the company’s sale to Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) for $1.6B. While at Orbitz Worldwide he launched the groundbreaking Orbitz Rewards loyalty program and built the Orbitz Partner Network into a leading provider of private label travel solutions to airlines, hotels, travel agencies and banks.Prior to Orbitz Worldwide, Barney served in a variety of roles at Expedia from 1999 to 2006, including as President of Expedia Asia Pacific from 2004 to 2006, where he led Expedia’s market entry into China, Australia and Japan.Barney has previously served on the boards of directors of Crystal Orange Hotel Group (formerly Mandarin Hotel Holdings), eLong, GlobalEnglish, LiquidPlanner and Lola Travel.Barney is a Board Leadership Fellow of the National Association of Corporate Directors. Barney received an MBA from INSEAD and an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University (Clare College).

Eric Schmidt is the founding partner of the Schmidt Family Foundation. He previously worked at Alphabet Inc. as an Executive Chairman and Technical Advisor. Eric Schmidt attended Princeton University.

Jack Dorsey is the Co-Founder and CEO of Block, Inc. He previously worked at Elliott Investment Management as a CEO.

Myke Naf is the Managing Partner of Übermorgen Ventures.He attended University of St.Gallen.

Erdem Yurdanur - Founder & Director @ Admost

Eduardo Ronzano is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kolet. He previously worked at The Bradery as a Pre-Seed Investor. Eduardo Ronzano attended ESCP Business School.

Chamath Palihapitiya is the Founder and Managing Partner of Social Capital. He previously worked at BMO Nesbitt Burns as an Associate of the Interest Rate Derivatives Group. Chamath Palihapitiya attended the University of Waterloo.

Rajul co-founded GlobalLogic, sold for $420M in 2013 to Apax partners in the largest deal of the year in India. Rajul built the operation ground up in India and then expanded through global acquisitions, until 2008. Rajul then consulted with top tier venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital and Aavishkaar, where he got exposed to the educationsector.Earlier, right out of college, Rajul founded Pine Labs, a leader in the Indian market in credit card transactions.Rajul serves on several Boards, including publicly traded S Mobility, a leader in digital mobility. He is an active mentor to several startups, a sought after angel investor and a participant in several industry bodies such as TiE, NASSCOM, IIT Mentors and othersRajul is a graduate from IIT Delhi.

Jörg was appointed to the Board when Access Industries acquired the Company in 2007. Jörg is responsible for the media/online and telecom businesses at Access Industries, which he joined in May 2007. He was previously a Managing Director of Providence Equity Partners. Jörg has been active in the media and communications space since 1992. Hehas, as an investor, been involved with several businesses dealing with sports rights (RGE Group, Digiturk), internet services (Bibit NV, Adyen, Speedera Networks) and content delivery (Casema NV, Comhem AB). Jörg’s current board positions include Tory Burch LLC, Rebate Networks GmbH, AINMT Holdings AB, RGE Group Limited, Icon UK Distribution Holdings Limited and Mendeley Research Networks. Prior board positions include Digiturk, Casema NV, Comhem AB, Bibit BV, VersaTel Telecom NV and Speedera Networks Inc.

Shervin Pishevar is the Co-Founder at Virgin Hyperloop.

Building Sports & Tech Companies

Justin Kan is the Co-Founder of Stash. He previously worked at Atrium as a CEO. Justin Kan attended Yale University.

Daniel Curran is the Founder and CEO at CustEx.com.

Scott is an American entrepreneur and angel investor. He is best known as a co-founder of IronPort and an early advisor and board member at PayPal.Scott Banister started his career as a pioneer in the email business. He was Founder and VP of Technology at ListBot, the largest ASP for business email list hosting. ListBot was acquired byMicrosoft. After ListBot, Scott spent his time working with other start-ups as a board member and investor. These start-ups include eVoice, creator of the first email-enabled home voicemail service, which was acquired by AOL in 2001. He served as VP of Ideas at idealab!, where he contributed numerous innovations, including the unique bid-for-placement search engine model that powers Overture. In December 2000, with Scott Weiss, Banister co-founded IronPort, an email appliance provider that was acquired in 2007 by Cisco for US$830 million.Scott Banister is co-founder and Chairman of Other private equity investments include Zappos.com, LiveOps, Facebook, Hi5.com, Tagged.com, iLike, and Causes.com.Banister attended University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, from which he dropped out in 1996 to move to Silicon Valley. He currently lives in Half Moon Bay, California with his wife Cyan.

Tom Glocer joined BlueVoyant as Executive Chairman and Founder in 2017.

Jacob T. Gaffney (born March 10, 2004) is an American businessman and financier. He is part-owner and the current Chief Executive Officer of Gaffney-Thompson Enterprises, a private equity group based in Cincinnati, Ohio. From 2022 to 2023, the company was presumably under investigation for its former association with racketeer-influenced corruptorganizations.Gaffney was born in Stepnyak, Kazakhstan in March 2004. He attended the Madeira City School District, a public school in Cincinnati, Ohio and graduated in May 2022. In 2018, Gaffney picked up an interest in producing beats on the music-making platform SoundTrap, which was acquired by Spotify. In 2017, Lil Pump signed a deal with Tha Lights Global, a talent management company and record label which is best known for upgrading the careers of Lil Pump, Dominic Fike, Arizona Zervas, and others. His career was based primarily in Cincinnati, Ohio but was influenced by Tha Lights Global, based in Los Angeles, CA. During 2018 and 2019, he connected with several Grammy-nominated producers and others who worked on Billboard-charting singles. In 2019, he purchased a percentage of rights to Lil Tecca’s “RAN$OM” song, which peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following the commercial and beneficial success in the production of this single, Gaffney continued to produce music and purchased rights to several songs in order to retain royalties of Billboard-charting artists. In December of 2020, Gaffney announced his departure from music production and focused on creating his own record company, and aspired to sign to a major parent organization. He launched 876K Entertainment and distributed music through Sony Music Publishing (U.S.) and Vydia, Inc. (U.S.).In 2021, Gaffney recognized the mass variety of coverage on the topic of Bishop Sycamore, an alleged non-existent high school football team based in Columbus, Ohio. He decided to partner in a venture with former head coach LeRoy Johnson and launched 7130 Entertainment alongside Vydia, Inc., a music distribution company. On August 12, 2022, hip-hop artist Christopher Stewart approved Gaffney's alignment from 7130 Entertainment and transferred executive LeRoy Johnson to Shock The World Entertainment which is based in Los Angeles, CA. Gaffney has worked closely with Stewart, a business relationship dating back to 2019. Christopher, who is the son of Laney Stewart, is a family member related to Christopher Alan "Tricky" Stewart, who is known for production within their RedZone Entertainment company, founded in 1995, and are responsible for over 25 million records sold. They have worked with clients such as The Dream, Rihanna, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, and Beyoncé.On September 13, 2022, it was announced that Gaffney would enter into the process of incorporating a private-equity firm, known as Gaffney-Thompson Enterprises. Following the filing of incorporation with the State of Ohio, it was alleged that G.T. Enterprises was involved in foreign business operations that spanned from the United States, United Kingdom, and Mexico. In November 2022, subsidiary companies connected to G.T. Enterprises in the state of Texas were investigated for organized crime allegations.

Tom McInerney is a notable angel investor. He was a seed investor in Segment, Notion, GetAround, Tala, MemSQL, Mode Analytics, OpenTrons, Arcadia Power, and more.

Oskar Hartmann currently works as an Angel Investor for YAP. He previously worked at Flaschenpost SE as an Investor. Oskar Hartmann attended WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management.

Andy Phillipps is the Advisor, IC and Venture Partner at IQ Capital.

Samuel Shank is a Board Member at Operto Guest Technologies. He attended Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management and the University of Virginia.

Chris is an Australian entrepreneur and investor based in Munich, Germany. He co-founded Australia's largest comparison shopping site Getprice.com.au in 2005 and sold it to News Corp in 2010. He became News Corp's Executive Director of Commerce before leading a management buyout of Getprice in 2012, then repositioned the business asNext Commerce, including acquiring south east Asian price comparison Pricepanda and securing investment from Rocket Internet, Tengelmann Ventures, PLDT and Kinnevik, before selling the group to UK-listed Future plc in 2016.Chris also co-founded programmatic video business Audience TV, native ecommerce advertising company Hynt.com and the autonomous vehicle software company Unleash Aerial.Chris is also the founding investor and chairman of Munich-based vacation rentals business Holidu and an industrial advisor to Swedish private equity group EQT.

Fabrice Grinda is among the world’s leading Internet entrepreneurs and investors.He has over $300 million in exits and 150 angel investments. Fabrice has served as CEO for three multinational companies and has an impressive track record as an early investor in Alibaba, Lending Club, Delivery Hero and Brightroll.Fabrice is currentlyinvesting in startups and building companies through FJ Labs, which he cofounded with business partner Jose Marin. Fabrice is also co-founder and executive chairman of Beepi, a next generation used car marketplace. Beepi recently raised $60 million in series B funding.Prior to FJ Labs and Beepi, Fabrice was co-founder and co-CEO of OLX, one of the largest websites in the world with over 200 million unique visitors per month. The company operates in 40 countries and has over 1,200 employees. OLX is the largest classifieds site in India, Brazil, Pakistan, Poland, Ukraine, Portugal and many other emerging markets.Before OLX, Fabrice was co-founder and CEO of Zingy, one of the largest wireless media companies in the Americas. Fabrice successfully grew the business to $200 million in sales in four years.Fabrice started his entrepreneurial journey in 1998, at 23, when he co-founded and was CEO of Aucland. Soon after, Aucland grew into one of the largest auction sites in Europe. Before his entrepreneurial endeavors, Fabrice worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company.Fabrice holds a BA in Economics from Princeton University. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1996, and was awarded the Halbert White prize, given to the most distinguished economics student, as well as The Wolfe Balleisen memorial prize, awarded for best thesis.In his free time, Fabrice likes to travel the world, kitesurf, play tennis, and blog about his personal and professional life at www.fabricegrinda.com.

Christopher Shonk is the Managing Director of ATX Venture Partners. Christopher Shonk holds 10 board and advisor roles including Investor & Advisor at RoverPass, Investor & Director at Slingshot Aerospace, and Advisor at SourceDay. He attended ACTON MBA and Campbell University.

Orkun Samioglu - Managing Partner @ Ipera Group

Rudy Gadre is Partner at Founder's Co-op. Rudy Gadre is an active angel Investor and is also an Advisor to startups. Rudy Gadre served as Vice President and General Counsel of Facebook, where Rudy Gadre was responsible for all legal matters since January 2006. In 1999, he joined Amazon and served as its Vice President and Associate GeneralCounsel for Business Development, intellectual property, and new technologies. He was the Principal Legal Negotiator for Amazon's most significant strategic alliances and joint ventures, where Rudy Gadre oversaw the development and licensing of patents and other intellectual property, and was responsible for all legal aspects of Amazon's new technology initiatives. From September 1994 to February 1999, Rudy Gadre worked at Perkins Coie LLP, as an Associate in the technology business group. At Perkins, he represented clients ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies in a diverse array of matters, including joint ventures, development, protection and licensing of intellectual property, and mergers and acquisitions. Rudy Gadre served as Vice President of Business Operations at Evri, Inc, from September 2008 to July 2010. He serves as a Member of Strategic Advisory Board at Syntonic Limited. He served as a Director of Jobaline.com Inc. He served as an Independent Director of The W Fund. He is a passionate supporter of the Seattle technology ecosystem. He was recognized by Washington Law and Politics magazine as a "Super Lawyer" in 2003 and 2004. Rudy Gadre holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Franklin and Marshall College and graduated from the University of Washington School of Law.

Jose Marin started his professional career as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group.In 1999 he co-founded DeRemate.com (eBay model for Latin America). The company raised 75 M USD, did a partial cash-out sale to Terra and later merged with Mercado Libre that went Public in Nasdaq .Currently Jose is co-Founder and co-CEO of IGExpansion. IG takes successful internet business models into emerging markets (main focus Brazil). IG builds one project per year and will not build more than 6 (investing the first 3 to 5 M USD per project). 5 of the 6 are already operating being Viajanet (Expedia for Latam) its biggest success.Jose is also founder of Serendipity Investments, company that has invested in >70 start-ups. Before this, Jose invested in projects such as Bazee (auctions sold to eBay in 2005) and eDreams (European Travel site sold to TA Associates in 2006) obtaining top tier returns.Jose is a Mechanical and Electrical Engineer and holds an MBA and an MA in International development Economics from Stanford.

David Murray-Hundley aka The Grumpy Entrepreneur™ is a technology geek and entrepreneur at heart.CEO and Co Founder of Pario Ventures. www.parioventures.com . I invest alongside the majority of Pario Ventures investments. David was inspired by the movie “War Games” at the age of 8 and commercially released his first game for the BBC Micro atjust 11 years old.David went on to study Artificial Intelligence when people thought it was just about Terminator and in his early 20s was part of the team that delivered the worlds first Web Ecommerce B2B platform with Barclays and Chase Manhatten.For the rest of his 20s David helped develop the first smart card readers for Credit Cards with Dione and was part of the founding team for Commerce One in Silicon Valley who became the top stock on Nasdaq (Ecommerce) during the dotcom boom at $22bn valuation.Also built the Internets first Automotive Market Place Exchange for General Motors forming part of Covisint. He was bankrupt by the time he was 30. “A good thing”, he says and later went on to build and be part of building a number of companies and has had a number of exits in recent years as well as Reid Hoffman awarding David Linkedin European Business Leader Of The Year.David is a company chairman, director, advisor and mentor. He invests in and works with a number of startups and scaling companies not just in technology. Technology key focus is Consumer Fintech, E-Commerce, Artificial Inteligence and Automotive and Motorsport Technology Also, following in the footsteps of his one of his inspirations, John Harvey-Jones, he spends a lot of time troubleshooting businesses.

Gil Penchina is retired

Alexis Ohanian is the President and Founder of 776 Foundation. He previously worked at reddit as an Executive Chair and Board Member. Alexis Ohanian attended the University of Virginia.

Rick Marini is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Catapult Capital.

Nathan Blecharczyk is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Airbnb, a trusted community marketplace that connects people with unique accommodations in more than 34,000 cities and 191 countries. Blecharczyk oversaw the creation of Airbnbs engineering, data science, and performance marketing teams and currently plays a leading role in thecompanys business and product strategy. He became an entrepreneur early on, running a business while he was in high school that sold to clients in more than 20 countries. He earned a degree in Computer Science from Harvard University and held several engineering positions before co-founding Airbnb. As a guest, Blecharczyk has stayed in hundreds of homes using Airbnb and he is also a host in San Francisco, where he lives with his family.

Genco Alp - Founder & CEO @ InGame Group

Jose Marin started his professional career as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group.In 1999 he co-founded DeRemate.com (eBay model for Latin America). The company raised 75 M USD, did a partial cash-out sale to Terra and later merged with Mercado Libre that went Public in Nasdaq .Currently Jose is co-Founder and co-CEO of IGExpansion. IG takes successful internet business models into emerging markets (main focus Brazil). IG builds one project per year and will not build more than 6 (investing the first 3 to 5 M USD per project). 5 of the 6 are already operating being Viajanet (Expedia for Latam) its biggest success.Jose is also founder of Serendipity Investments, company that has invested in >70 start-ups. Before this, Jose invested in projects such as Bazee (auctions sold to eBay in 2005) and eDreams (European Travel site sold to TA Associates in 2006) obtaining top tier returns.Jose is a Mechanical and Electrical Engineer and holds an MBA and an MA in International development Economics from Stanford.

Mr. Qasar Younis is the Founder of Talkbin. Mr. Younis serves as a Partner and Chief Operating Officer of Y Combinator. He is responsible to manage all Y Combinator events, operations, finance and legal functions, as well as advise startups. Previously, he served as a Part-Time Partner at the firm.

Walter A. Winshall serves as a Principal in Collaborative Seed and Growth Partners, LLC, an investment firm specializing in the commercialization of early-stage technology. Previously, he was a co-founder and Chairman of SilverPlatter International, NV, a company providing information services for libraries, which was acquired by the Dutchpublishing company Wolters Kluwer in 2001. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of AgaMatrix, Inc., HealthCare IT, Inc., and MOCA Systems, Inc. He graduated from MIT in electrical engineering and from the Harvard Law School. At AgaMatrix, Walt provides guidance in corporate development strategy.

Carlos Domingo is the Founder & CEO at Securitize.

Dave Baggett is a Co-Founder and serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Inky. As co-founder and COO of travel search provider ITA Software, he oversaw software development, operations, and customer relations, expanding the company to 500 employees. Google acquired ITA for $700M in April 2011. Dave has a B.S./B.A. in Computer Science andLinguistics from the University of Maryland, College Park and a S.M. in Computer Science from MIT. He is a Board Member of the Maryland Innovation Initiative, a Trustee of the University of Maryland College Park Foundation, and a Member of the UMCP Computer, Math & Natural Sciences Board of Visitors and Chair of its Entrepreneurship Task Force.

Wei Guo, the founding partner of UpHonest Capital, is an active angel investor in Silicon Valley, focusing on early-stage cross-sector investments. He founded Wei Fund in 2015 and UpHonest Capital Fund I in 2016, invested in well-known companies such as Hims&Hers(NYSE: HIMS), Vicarious Surgical(NYSE: RBOT), Knightscope (NASDAQ: KSCP), Checkr,Lime, Boom, Rescale, Dialpad and more. Since 2015, he has invested in over 400 Silicon Valley startups, over 76 companies with valuations greater than 100 million USD, and 23 portfolio companies that have successfully exited.