The Ascent

Bobby Healy talks airborne cappuccinos and disrupting delivery

The Ascent

Show Notes

In this episode, Guy is joined by Bobby Healy, Founder and CEO of Dublin-based Manna - a potentially game-changing drone delivery start-up - and a highly-valued member of the Tenzing Entrepreneurs Panel. Like many of the guests on The Ascent, Bobby discovered a love of coding as a teenager, and before he’d turned 18 he’d landed a dream job writing video games for Nintendo. While passionate about gaming, Bobby found his way to a job in the emerging travel tech sector, at Amadeus, the global distribution system (GDS) - a behemoth technology platform providing travel agents with direct access to the world's airline booking platforms, but inspired to build something better, he struck out on his own and moved to Mexico City to found Eland, a middleware SAAS business that allowed airlines to connect their booking systems into various hosting platforms. Twelve years later, with over 50 staff, Bobby sold the business to trade. On his return to Dublin, he chanced upon a business with bags of potential, and over the next 15 years, transformed what was then a family-run physical car rental operation into CarTrawler, the world’s biggest B2B travel technology platform. Bobby exited CarTrawler during the pandemic to focus on Manna, which, he says, within three years will either be gigantic or nothing at all.

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