Amit Anand, managing partner of Jungle Ventures, believes Asia will be at the forefront of travel innovation in the years ahead and that the next wave of start-ups will be more innovative and disruptive.

Anand (right), who was among the first investors to take a bet on Travelmob and made its exit when HomeAway acquired 61% of the start-up, said, "We will see a lot of new innovative models coming out of travel in Asia, more than from the US. There's a lot of activity in travel industry itself – people travelling, hotels being built, look at the success of AirAsia."

He said he had seen some interesting models coming up such as visual search and a post-booking app. "Yes, there are start-ups in these spaces in the US but Asia is not far behind – the next wave of start-ups will be more innovative and disruptive."

And the biggest disruption will come from mobile. "The whole broad search and travel booking is open for the taking in Asia – there is the potential for somebody to become the platform, the mobile first platform.

"Who will become THE travel brand on the mobile internet – could we see an Expedia.com borne out of mobile that will be bigger than Expedia?

"The mobile customer in Asia doesn't know travel brands that well – their exposure is not to Expedia or Makemytrip, but Facebook or WhatsApp."

Anand, who hails from Mumbai and has a technology enterprise background, set up Jungle Ventures in 2010 with a fund of US$5 million from "families and friends". Today, its fund has grown to US$20 million and its average ticket size is between US$500,000 and US$2 million.

"Typically we lead mini series A rounds and gather investors around us. We are currently doing a round of US$3 million right now, and we are putting in US$500,000."

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