Our investment in TravelPerk: the all-in-one platform solving corporate travel & expense management
Whether it’s the mid-sized accounting firm in London that travels across the country weekly for important client meetings, or the solar panel company in Phoenix that needs to cross the state daily for installations, travel plays a critical role in the functioning of SMB & mid-market companies across the globe. Business travel resurged following the pandemic and is undeniably here to stay. The global market size for business travel in 2024 was approximately $1.5 trillion, up over 6% compared to 2019. For companies like the mid-sized accounting firm, it has become clear that there is no substitute for face-to-face when it comes to important client and employee meetings -- and for others like the solar panel installation company, there is simply no alternative to an in-person job.
The process of trying to manage this corporate travel is painful, burdensome and expensive. The status quo solution for SMB and mid-market companies is for employees to make bookings themselves on a consumer platform, risking booking out of policy and losing time filing expenses. The alternative has been to work with a corporate travel management tool or an agency that is purpose-built for large enterprises and consequently far too expensive. For the CFO at these companies, they are stuck between a rock and a hard place: they either need to risk having limited control over this key budget item with employees booking directly on consumer platforms, or pay enormous fees to a large enterprise platform or agency.
TravelPerk has solved this with an all-in-one travel management platform that is purpose built for SMBs and mid-market companies, now used by over 6,000 companies worldwide. Solving these pain points with an affordable solution has required a deeply product-centric approach. For employees, TravelPerk offers a consumer-grade, intuitive booking platform with a depth of travel inventory that they can easily navigate and with 24/7 support available. For travel managers and CFOs, they can control their costs with travel policies and automated sign-offs, close their books quickly and more easily with streamlined processes, and make data-driven decisions around travel spend with an insights dashboard.
Corporate travel and expense management is time-consuming and expensive. We’ve long admired how TravelPerk has solved this problem with a product-centric approach, and remained at the forefront of the market through strategic acquisitions, international growth, and innovative product expansions.
Being founded in Europe has also created a unique edge for TravelPerk. Building a product that was initially for European customers across fragmented geographies has ingrained huge advantages into the product that have compounded over time. A best-in-class travel platform in Europe requires building a deeply localised product across multiple geographies -- with local inventory, integrations, language support, payments, and other local-specific product adaptations based on travel preferences. This localisation continues to compound deeper over time in TravelPerk’s existing geographies to serve customers even better. Moreover, this product DNA and know-how around building a deeply localised travel product is a key factor that enables TravelPerk to win as they continue to scale across new geographies, including doubling down in the US as part of this funding round.
On top of all this, the TravelPerk product just keeps getting better. Alongside the announcement of today’s $200m Series E funding round, the company has also announced its acquisition of Yokoy, the leading spend management platform. This will enable TravelPerk to become a truly end-to-end travel & expense solution, alongside its existing integrations via an open ecosystem of expense management partners.
Building such a powerful and complex platform has required an incredible team. Avi, the TravelPerk CEO & co-founder, not only brings domain expertise from his prior travel software company Hotel Ninjas which was acquired by Booking.com, but he has also built a culture at TravelPerk that is customer-focused, ambitious, and focused on relentless execution to build the best solution in the market. You feel that energy as you walk in the TravelPerk office, and with every TravelPerk team member you speak with. Not only does this culture enable them to serve their customers, but it also delivers results. The company has demonstrated a unique combination of growth and profitability at scale, with annualized booking volumes of over $2.5 billion, annualized revenue of over $200 million, growth of over 50% per annum for the last two years, and reaching EBITDA break-even at the end of 2024.
Atomico is thrilled to be leading this $200m Series E investment to continue to fuel the company’s geographic expansion alongside significant investments into product, technology and AI as TravelPerk becomes the number one travel & expense management platform.
Atomico Partner Hillary Ball will join the TravelPerk board.
