Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: Suzanna Chiu

Suzanna Chiu, head of corporate venture capital at Amadeus Ventures, part of Spain-based travel systems provider Amadeus IT Group, has found a way to get near to the things she enjoys.

She said: “The role of CVC allows me to combine my strong interests in getting close to new technologies and transaction skills acquired from my investment banking days.

“I always have an interest in new technology since young. Technology is going to change the way we live, and have significant impact to our society.

“As a CVC, I have the opportunity to work with lots of passionate entrepreneurs and get to know their new ideas. Compared with traditional M&A where companies are being bought and sold for market shares and operational efficiency, CVCs in general focus on the creation of new value propositions and solving long standing pain points of an industry – which strong focus on exploring new frontiers of customer experiences.

“Doing VC activity inside a corporation gives you that particular focus on the solution and technology, rather than general direction / interest of the financial market, which I personally enjoy.”

Excluding two exits, Amadeus has five active investments, BlueSmart, BookingPal, Evature (Expert Virtual Agent), Yapta and Flyr, with another yet-to-be-announced at time of writing in early December.

Bluesmart, which raised $11.5m in October 2015, has developed smart luggage and an accompanying smartphone app that enables a user to track their bags worldwide, lock them and calculate their weight. The technology also provides a proximity alert and travel itineraries, while the bag includes a phone charger.

The firm’s two exits, Olset, a big data company acquired by business travel technology provider Deem in October, and Cabify. Spain-based ride-hailing service Cabify went on to close a €109m ($120m) series C round last year.

Chiu said: “The greatest success of us so far is to see one of our portfolio companies achieving the vision they have two years down the road plus the market going towards the same direction.

“When we showcase them in our customer events, everyone wants to be included in proof of concepts. Even internally, business units see the value of integrating their technology into our solutions. Overall, being able to deliver leading edge solution to our customers at the right time to market.

“The biggest challenges always come from within the organisation. Investment programs create natural tension with internal innovation / solution development activities. How we can align standards between funding internal and external projects; encourage partnership with third-party versus in-house development. These are a few on-going debates we are having internally.”

Chiu, an active photographer who pins snaps on crafts platform Pinterest and enjoys visiting places (ideal for a travel reservations company), was previously part of the business strategy team of Amadeus as a senior manager from 2012.

She said: “As a CVC, some of us have really big teams but most of us exist as part of the innovation team or corporate strategy. We do not have huge amount of resources in doing baseline finance work – finding comparable transactions, calculating market multiples for specific rounds.”

As befits an MBA graduate of London Business School who then spent more than four years at Macquarie Bank, Chiu wants to do more. She said her ambition was “to continue to strengthen Amadeus Ventures’ impact in the company and in the industry.

“Be seen in the travel industry as the trendsetter and indicator of innovation. Also to expand Amadeus Ventures into other areas of innovation within Amadeus.”