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Venture Capital News: TripActions Inks $154M Series C Round

2018-11-08
PALO ALTO, CA, TripActions, the corporate travel management company shaping the future of business travel, announced it has raised $154 million in Series C funding.
The round is led by Andreessen Horowitz, who is joined by TripActions' previous investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Zeev Ventures and SGVC. In addition to the investment from Andreessen Horowitz, Ben Horowitz will be joining the company's Board of Directors. Since its founding in 2015, TripActions has raised a total of $232M in funding.

The new capital will be used to double down on development of the company's product and service offerings globally to further accelerate enterprise adoption, including:

Expanding TripActions' cutting-edge R&D team globally with a large engineering and data science hub in the company's EMEA headquarters in Amsterdam
Applying innovative technology solutions to the pain points of corporate travel, including scaling out the company's proprietary support infrastructure which powers their in-house global team of travel agents. 80% of the company's support interactions are handled via its custom-built chat solution with a traveler satisfaction rating of 97%.

Growing adoption of the company's new suite of service offerings including TripActions Luxe, the company's white-glove VIP program for executive travel needs; TripActions' in-house Meetings & Event solution for group travel; TripActions' consulting services to build & manage effective supplier programs for customers; and TripActions' Guest Invite Portal which allows HR & recruiting teams to drastically reduce the time spent coordinating candidate travel.

Continued investment in TripActions' innovative global fulfillment model to deliver the largest & richest selection of global inventory available using software-powered partnership integrations, machine learning technologies and innovative fulfillment models.

"At TripActions, we're on a mission to power the in-person connections that move people, ideas and businesses forward. We know that travel plays a critical role in helping the most innovative companies achieve their growth objectives and stay a step ahead of the competition. Unfortunately business travel today is fraught with pain points for travelers and companies leading to low traveler adoption and compliance rates, incomplete visibility into travel spend and difficulty delivering duty of care," says Ariel Cohen, CEO and Co-Founder of TripActions. "Cutting-edge companies are flocking to TripActions at a fast rate because we offer a modern, user-friendly solution that road warriors love. With TripActions' high traveler adoption rates, our customers enjoy complete visibility into travel program savings, reduced noise around travel and a more productive employee base committed to driving company growth."

TripActions' 2018 State of Business Travel Report shows that while business travel is critical for driving company growth, finance leaders, travel managers and travelers are not happy with legacy corporate travel management companies and are hungry for a more user-friendly, technology-powered alternative:

-83% of business travelers spend more than 1 hour booking each work trip, a costly loss of productive work time

-50% of corporate travelers today ignore their company's travel solutions, thereby limiting a company's ability to track and manage travel spend and to account for traveling employees in the event of an emergency

-64% of corporate travelers feel like they have to fend for themselves on the road, with only 8% reporting that their travel management company proactively reaches out when something goes wrong

"TripActions is reshaping the stone age corporate travel industry with a solution that uses modern software and machine learning to deliver a personalized, delightful experience for road warriors and their employers," says Ben Horowitz, Co-founder and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "It's a real breakthrough. When we interviewed their customers, both the employer and the employees loved the service. We rarely see that and never in travel."

Ilan Twig, CTO and Co-founder, TripActions, comments: "We're re-thinking the way that corporate travel is run and supported globally. With AI and machine learning, we're able to deliver a truly customized traveler experience at scale, allowing us to reduce the time to book a trip from more than hour to a mere 6 minutes. We're also using this technology to deliver incredible support. Imagine a world where every travel headache -- whether that be a flight delay or a lost hotel room -- is taken care of before you even knew something was wrong. This is exactly what TripActions is able to offer to our customers today."

TripActions' latest round of funding comes on the heels of rapid customer adoption and revenue growth.

Highlights include:

Delivering greater than 700% YoY revenue growth from the company's growing base of thousands of customers across multiple industries including Lyft, Dropbox, Sara Lee Frozen Bakery and Stella & Dot.

Expanding operations to 7 offices globally including Amsterdam, London & Sydney to better serve TripActions' customers and travelers.

Eliminating the pain points of corporate travel. TripActions customers see 34% savings on their hotel spend and traveler adoption rates over 90% versus the industry norm of 50%.

"The TripActions team is thrilled to be partnering with Andreessen Horowitz, to welcome Ben to our Board of Directors and to deepen our relationship with Arif Janmohamed of Lightspeed Venture Partners and Oren Zeev of Zeev Ventures who have been with us from the beginning," continues Cohen. "We're grateful for their early bets on us and for our customers who have supported us along the way. As we continue to grow at a rapid clip, we're committed to taking the pain out of corporate travel for our customers and their travelers."

About TripActions

At TripActions, we believe nothing can truly replace the value of being there in-person. So we built an end-to-end travel platform to make business travel as easy as possible for road warriors. TripActions travelers enjoy personalized results to book a trip in minutes, a wide selection of flights, hotels and transportation, and proactive 24/7 support to help when plans change. We focus on aligning company priorities and traveler needs -- companies save an average of 34 percent on their travel spend and travelers give TripActions a 97 percent satisfaction rating. Find out why leading companies such as Dropbox, Lyft, Sara Lee Frozen Bakery, the ACLU and Tuft and Needle trust TripActions for their business travel. TripActions is Bay-Area based and was founded in 2015 by Ariel Cohen and Ilan Twig. Learn more at TripActions.com or on the TripActions blog.
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