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Dragon's Den Judges

The contest, conducted as part of EyeforTravel's Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2008, featured 20 innovative companies (comprising B2B and B2C models), selected to pitch to five of the industry's biggest investors. Chaired by David Scowsill, Yuuguu, the five judges were:

• Dick Porter, Co-founder & Director, STA Travel
  • Dick started STA Travel in the seventies and grew it into a US$1.2 Billion organization employing 2600 people in over 90 countries. Now on the STA Travel board he devotes his time to finding and funding start ups that could replicate such a massive growth.

• Hugo Burge, Founder,  Howzat Media
  • Whilst building Cheapflights into an international flight comparison site, Hugo founded Howzat Media investment fund. Investments include WAYN.com, Zoomf.com, TrustedPlaces.com
• Jason Katz, Founder,  KP Capital
  • UBS's youngest Managing Director, now runs his own private equity fund devoted to investments in the global leisure sector. Jason was involved in the Hilton and Thomas Cook transactions as well as selling lastminute.com to Sabre and Active Hotels to Priceline.
• Gerry Samuels, CEO, Travel Capital
  • Gerry co-founded Gradient Solutions that was acquired by Sabre. Travel Capital invests in companies, with funding requirements ranging from MBO/MBI down to early stage funding. The investment capital is sourced principally from Travel Capital's Founders, and from anetwork of partners within the institutional private equity world
• John Kent, CEO, youtravel.com
  
  • John has been a serial entrepreneur and has managed to build value both as an executive and as an entrepreneur. John founded youtravel.com in February 2006 and the business is expected to reach a turnover of €70m in its first year of operations. Previous positions include lastminute.com UK MD, travelbargains.com CEO and Medhotels.com