TravelActions, a business travel and expense company, has raised a combination of equity and debt at a retrospective valuation of $9.2 billion, compared to its previous valuation of $7.5 billion. The financing is a $154 million equity round from investors, including repeat investors Andreessen Horowitz and Premji Invest, and a $150 million structured financing deal from Coatue.
The deal comes weeks after the Palo Alto-based company reportedly filed confidentially to go public in the second quarter of next year at a valuation of $12 billion. Totaling $304 million, Series G financing has been in the works since at least May, confirming previous Bloomberg reports that the travel organization sought financing at a higher valuation.
Other investors in the company include Base Partners, Elad Gil, Greenoaks Capital Management, Zeev Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures and Addition Ventures. As part of the transaction, Premji Invest’s Sandesh Patnam will join TripActions’ board of directors. Dan Rose of Coatue Ventures will join as board observer.
In a release announcing the dealTripActions noted that the funding will be used for global expansion, building on the launch of expense management in Europe and new offices in Portugal, Germany, France and the UK. The company also acquired a number of travel management companies, now employing more than 2,500 people.
Why the deal now, in anticipation of an impending IPO? TripActions has not commented on plans for public listing, but seeing a company increase ahead of a financial event of that magnitude isn’t unique. IPOs are long and expensive; so TripActions could attract strategic investors to guide the process, or just cash to give it buffer space in case the timeline changes due to market volatility.
As we know from last year, high valuations and lots of cash don’t mean much as a signal of business stability. That said, travel startups struggled especially early in the pandemic, and a recovery shown by investment capital is clearly worth noting. The company expanded its business travel platform by bringing fintech and costs into the mix, a diversified yet competitive world to dive into.
TripActions did not share specific financial data, but mentioned in the release that the expense management platform grew more than 7.5x the spend volume in the past quarter, and gross bookings for business travel increased more than 5x year over year.
businesskinda.com contacted TripActions for more information about the raise and IPO, as well as expansion plans, but has not heard back at the time of publication.
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