TravelPerk raises $60m to transform business travel
Global business travel platform TravelPerk today announces that it has closed its series C round at $104m by adding an additional $60 million from existing investors.
The investment will be used to further accelerate the company’s product innovation with the goal of giving business travelers real freedom and flexibility while providing companies with control over their travel spend.
As well as continuing its European expansion, the company expects to announce major product additions in the coming weeks and months that will bring a new level of disruption to the pricing structure of an industry that is still dominated by outdated solutions that make business travel expensive and painful.
TravelPerk’s decision to focus on Europe – a huge market for business travel, worth more than $250bn annually – is born out of a desire to tackle the most difficult market first.
Europe presents unique challenges due to its fragmented nature – country-specific suppliers, languages, currencies, local tax, accounting laws, and GDPR are just a few of the complexities that need to be addressed across the continent. TravelPerk combines the best of business and leisure travel to provide its customers a one-stop shop solution to these problems, with proprietary technology and best-in-class 24/7 traveler support.
Founded in 2015, TravelPerk has now raised nearly $134 million in total funding. In 2019 the business has seen a 300% increase in revenue on the platform, 250% increase in headcount since the start of the year, and new office openings in London and Berlin.
Recent strategic partnerships with Lufthansa, Trainline, Spendesk, and Expensify have further enhanced its inventory and experience. TravelPerk’s customer acquisition has also accelerated with the company now the business travel provider of choice for many businesses including Transferwise, Adyen, Glovo, and Farfetch.
Avi Meir, CEO and Co-founder of TravelPerk, said: “At TravelPerk, we believe that travel is the biggest unsolved problem in business today. As a $1.3tn global market, it’s staggering that businesses have been stuck for so long with a status quo defined by limited inventory, inflexible booking experiences, and lousy customer support.
“That’s why our approach is all about innovations that will genuinely make life easier for the traveler, and we’re proud to have the continued backing of our fantastic investors in support of this strategy. We have big ambitions for the next phase of our product development, which will see us quickly bring new offerings to market that don’t just see business travel catch up with consumer travel, but actually surpass it.”
The Series C extension has been raised from the same investors that participated in the first part of the round, announced in October 2018: Kinnevik, Partners of DST Global, Target Global, Felix Capital, Sunstone, and LocalGlobe.