Part 1: Andy's entrepreneurial journey

Excitingly, Invested Investor Andy Phillipps joined Peter Cowley for a two part podcast. In part one, Andy explains how he established the hotel booking company, Active Hotels, alongside his co-founder and cousin Adrian Critchlow. Active Hotels grew rapidly, bought by Priceline and merged with Bookings BV to become Booking.com. Andy's business model transformed the UK online hotel market and continues to lead global trends. Having successfully exited to Priceline, Andy describes how he approached the topic of aquisition, and then how he apporached the acquirers. Part two follows his transition into Angel Investing, what he learnt and his top tips for those looking to become Invested Investors. 

Andy is a serial entrepreneur and an early stage investor in startups. He co-founded Active Hotels with Adrian Critchlow, which their team grew to be the largest online hotel booking company in Europe before sale to Priceline. Andy became CEO of priceline.com’s non US business where he initiated the purchase of Bookings BV and subsequent merger with Active to form Booking.com. He subsequently bought into, and was chairman of, Toptable.com. He has also co-founded Reevoo, which provides social content solutions to brands in approx 90 countries.

In addition, he lectures in entrepreneurship at London Business School and INSEAD and makes seed investments in early stage tech or market place businesses. He is an Ashoka Support Network member, fellow of the Judge business school at Cambridge University, board member of Cambridge angels, proud father of three monstrous children and has a PhD from Cambridge in mixed mode interfacial fracture of biomimetic ceramic laminates.

Podcast links:

Andy Phillipps - Serial entrepreneur and accomplished Angel Investor

Booking.com - a travel fare aggregator website and travel metasearch engine for lodging reservations.

OpenTable - an online restaurant-reservation service company.

Reevoo - helps shoppers make better buying decisions in their everyday lives

Cambridge Angels - a leading UK business angel network with international connections.