VIDEO: Brent Hoberman on the missed chance to buy Booking.com

Brent Hoberman co-founded lastminute.com in 1998, and his vision for the company years ago encompassed many of the services consumers have come to expect today around buying travel, food and activities online.

But during any pioneering business's life and an individual's career there are some critical moments.

One such moment for the online travel agency's then CEO was an opportunity that came up to buy Booking.com, in its formative days.

If the acquisition had taken place (lastminute.com's investors would never had sanctioned it, Hoberman says now), the intermediary landscape in Europe and possibly the world may have evolved into something completely different.

This and other recollections from the early days of online travel formed part of two wide-ranging interviews at Phocuswright Europe this week.

“Back then it was hard because there wasn’t enough data or machine learning,” he said during his Executive Interview at Phocuswright Europe.

But now, “those pipe dreams should be realized” by others in the industry, and he believes global leaders like Expedia and Booking.com - while extremely successful - are lacking on the innovation front.

“Today, there are no excuses.”

Hoberman, also co-founder and chairman of Founders Factory and Founders Forum, as well as co-founder and executive chairman of Firstminute Capital, traced his journey from starting lastminute.com to selling it to Sabre-owned Travelocity in 2005 during his Center Stage session.

He also discussed his investment strategy (and mentioned he was an early investor in GetYourGuide, before learning the news of its $484 million capital raise), what travel companies Founders Factory is working with and his thoughts on technologies such as robotics and virtual reality.

Watch the full interview below.

He later joined us in the PhocusWire studio to dive deeper into the lastminute.com-Booking.com story, other details from that period and his views the entrepreneur and startup landscape.