The team at JetBlue Ventures (JBV) took a moment to reflect on the achievements and milestones from 2023. From strategic partnerships and innovative investments to our programming and enriching team updates, JBV had another full year in the travel and venture industries.
Team updates
The success of any venture is rooted in its people, and JBV understands the importance of having a talented, passionate, and diverse team. In 2023, we welcomed several new folks who brought their unique perspectives and expertise to the table.
Jaimee Zullo came on board as the Communications and Marketing Manager, ensuring effective communication and brand recognition through media relations, website management, digital media strategy, and content development.
Coming from an investment banking background with a passion for sustainability in aviation, Eliza Dragomir started as a new Analyst on our investment team. Eliza works on sourcing, cataloging, analyzing, and modeling potential investments, and supporting the leadership team in developing investment recommendations.
Our new Associate Stefan Sandoval also joined the investment team, playing a pivotal role in sourcing, due diligence, and analysis of potential JBV investments. Stefan earned his MBA from the Yale School of Management, and he brings a wealth of experience from his time at Mendoza Ventures, Bright Ventures, and Bank of America.
JBV also welcomed Kira Farris as a summer associate, adding fresh insights and expertise to our investment decisions. She is currently finishing her MBA at the University of Michigan.
Recognizing the dedication and hard work within the team, JBV celebrated promotions as well. Ryan Chou was promoted to Managing Director of Investments, leveraging his decade-long experience in venture capital to drive innovation within the industry. We promoted Anna Shimoda to Senior Coordinator of Communications and Marketing and Jess Lozano-Schmitt to Senior Analyst of Operations and Partnerships.
Investments
JBV continued our commitment to shaping the future of travel through strategic investments. We carefully evaluated over 1,200 startups, yielding eight new investments and six follow-ons. This brings us to a total of 53 initial investments and 30 follow-ons. JBV also joined our second fund as a limited partner in 2023.
Here are some of our announced investments in the past 12 months with additional investments from 2023 being announced into 2024:
Assaia
Assaia enables airlines to improve on-time performance, airports to free up gates faster, make the ramp safer, and reduce CO2 emissions.
Kresus
Kresus is an open-source, privacy-focused digital identity manager built on Web3 technologies.
Shift5
Shift5 is a cybersecurity company that provides hardware and software solutions to defend operational technology (OT) platforms.
Avnos
Avnos is commercializing the most advanced technology in the Direct Air Capture of CO2. Its proprietary Hybrid Direct Air Capture (HDAC) solution inverts the water paradigm in DAC, producing water, eliminating heat consumption, and reducing costs compared to other forms of DAC.
Rubicon Carbon
Rubicon Carbon is an innovative platform that channels capital to unlock at-scale decarbonization projects and delivers enterprise-grade solutions for carbon credit purchases.
Pixiebrix
PixieBrix is a low-code platform to create and deploy custom browser mods that boost productivity.
Pulsora
Pulsora is the all-in-one platform for enterprise sustainability management.
UAV SAF Fund
The United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund is a way for companies and consumers to come together and increase the supply of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) through the support of startups.
Aether Fuels
Aether Fuels is a next-generation climate technology company aiming to decarbonize “hard-to-abate” industries including aviation and ocean shipping with breakthrough solutions for producing sustainable fuels that are practical, economical, and scalable.
Innovation sprints
Our two innovation sprints in 2023 focused on improving the inflight experience and modernizing the System Operations Center (SOC).
The inflight experience sprint sourced 80 tech startups that could provide ways for customers to recognize Inflight Crewmembers and provide feedback, an Inflight Crewmember rewards program, and enterprise tools to support Inflight Crewmember operations such as communications.
The SOC Sprint scouted 171 startups, with five presenting on demo day in November. This sprint focused on identifying startup solutions to improve communication tools, enhance data-driven operations, and explore automation and other new tech solutions.
Partnerships
In addition to the execution of various innovation sprints, our operations team has been hard at work, furthering our partnerships with JetBlue’s subsidiary JetBlue Travel Products (JTP) and the broader JetBlue organization. Additionally, they conducted 16 strategic projects around certain use cases and procurement opportunities to help introduce early-stage startups and their new ideas to compete with incumbent players. Furthermore, their work has resulted in JBV overseeing six proof of concepts (POCs) to modernize JetBlue’s technologies, and are in the process of discussing several more.
Programming
JBV hosted a summit for our portfolio company founders in May, which was an opportunity for our founders to connect with and learn from each other as well as with our team. We also welcomed several great Goldman Sachs, Pitchbook, Counterpart Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Meritech Capital speakers.
We also hosted our second Sustainability Summit in October. The Sustainability Summit had representation from our portfolio companies EPS, Beacon AI, Tomorrow.io, Avnos, and Rubicon, and speakers included senior leaders from:
- JetBlue
- SFO
- Ferrovial Vertiports
- Shell
- Goldman Sachs
- Amazon Climate Pledge Fund
- Airlines for Americas
- TPG Rise Climate
Portfolio updates
As for the companies we’d already invested in, they made lots of big moves in 2023:
In March, portfolio company Universal Hydrogen completed its first flight of a hydrogen regional airliner, marking the largest hydrogen fuel cell-powered airplane ever to take to the skies and the largest airplane to cruise principally on hydrogen.
April saw portfolio company Electric Power Systems (EPS) launch its strategic partnership with Regent Craft and portfolio company Bizly announced an integration with Cvent and joined the Cvent app marketplace.
By June, portfolio company Frontdesk acquired Chicago-based property manager Zencity, and in July, portfolio company Air Company announced a collaboration with Air Canada.
In October, portfolio company Rubicon Carbon announced a strategic partnership with CHOOOSE, a platform leading SaaS platform enabling businesses to integrate climate action into customer experiences.
To round out the year, in October portfolio company Universal Hydrogen announced a collaboration with JBT AeroTech to bring hydrogen power to airport ground supply equipment. Then in November, Universal Hydrogen signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan Airlines to bring hydrogen-powered flights to Japan.
We moved!
The only constant is change, and with that spirit, JBV moved our office from San Carlos to San Francisco. This move reflects our commitment to growth, collaboration, and staying at the forefront of tech advancement. We hope you’ll visit us in 2024!
We moved in 2023, and we’ll certainly keep making moves in 2024. Stay in touch with us on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and through our newsletter.
