Travelperk’s CEO and co -founder Avi Meir.
Travelperk
Travelperk, a corporate travel platform, told the CNBC that Travelperk, who had raised $ 200 million in a $ 2.7 billion funding round from investors, including Atomico and EQT.
New financing will double the market value of Travelperk from January 2024, which has been raised $ 140 million since January 2024. Noteus partner has also participated in this latest investment round.
In addition to the financing round, Barcelona -based startups have announced that they have acquired the Swiss expenditure management platform Yokoy.
As a result of the acquisition, Yokoy Investor Sequoia Capital will participate in Travelperk cap tables with Kinnevik of the existing investor General Catalyst. Softbank With a vision fund Blackstone。
Travelperk stated that fresh cash would be used to accelerate growth, fuel expansion in the US market, investing in products, technology, and artificial intelligence.
From the hardships from COVID to $ 2.7 billion
Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo, the president and highest executive officer of TravelPerk, said that CNBC venture capitalists repelled from the era of struggle facing COVID-19 pandemic, and then attracted the company’s growth story. 。
Travelperk’s earnings fell rapidly in 2020 and 2021, and most business trips stopped. According to Taunay-Bucalo, the revenue increased by about five times the size before COVID hits.
“Why are we doing so well now because there was a period when you had to be strong. You had to have a good base, so you have to be poor. He said, “he said.
Hillary Ball, a partner who focuses on Atomiko’s growth, has been attracted to investing in Travelperk because he is working on “complicated and difficult problems”, mainly on corporate travel.
“This is the market that has been revived following the pandemic,” said the CNBC. “In the past year, the global value of corporate travel was $ 1.5 trillion. This is an increase of 6 % compared to Pandemic before and in 2019. This is the market and growing. It is clear that it is a market.
She added that corporate travel is a huge area of spending for companies.
TRAVELPERK last year We raised $ 144 million venture funds from SoftBank and more, increasing investment in AI technology and product development.
In the latter half of the year, the company later raised a $ 135 million debt loan, acquired AMTRAV, a company -based corporate travel reservation software company, to support the expansion in the US market.
Later, the company raised $ 135 million debt funding, acquiring AMTRAV, a company -based company -based company, and supporting the expansion in the US market.
“I think this is a very large market. I added a size between the United States and Europe, about 220 billion dollars between small and medium -sized businesses and medium -sized enterprises.” Ta.
“We don’t think we have managed about half of the $ 20 billion, so you and I go to Booking.com for the hotel and go to Expedia for flights. This is a very fragmented and different experience.
Despite reaching a size of over 1,500 employees and $ 2.7 billion, Taunay-Bucalo says that Travelperk is not in a hurry to the IPO, mainly focusing on maintaining customers. Masu.
“There is no plan in the short term,” he said. “We want to be here 100 years later … we have this almost unusual long -term view for high -tech companies. As a result, the way we see the world is a little different. We do not want to do this.
I’m not worried about ai ‘agents’
TAUNAY-BUCALO stated that Travelperk invests in AI to strengthen its product provision, and the acquisition of YOKOY will bring a “very powerful AI team.”
Devis Russi, the highest technical officer of Yokoy, used to work in the Swiss France’s Particle Physical Research Institute.
Travelperk’s technology chief is not interested in the appearance of the so -called “agent” AI. This refers to a system that does not rely on prompts, but can perform action on behalf of people.
Last week, Openai released an operator, an AI agent that can execute tasks, such as planning a restaurant on behalf of vacation plans and users, on behalf of users.
“Reality is so,, Taunay-bucalo discusses Openai’s announcement and does not change overnight. “
“Everything we are watching is happening, we are going to test it,” he added. “We intend to test it. We will release it. If it works, we will hold it, if it does not work, we will kill it.”