TripActions, a corporate travel and expense company, is valued at $9.2 billion after financing, up from $7.5 billion in combined equity and debt. The funding comes from $154 million in equity from investors including return 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 filed to go public in the second quarter of next year at a valuation of $12 billion. With a total of $304 million, the Series G financing has been in the works since at least May, confirming earlier Bloomberg reports that the travel company is seeking higher valuation financing.
Other investors in the company include Base Partners, Elad Gil, GreenOx Capital Management, Zeev Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures and Addition Ventures. As part of the transaction, Sandesh Patnam of Premji Invest will join TripActions’ board of directors. Coatue Ventures’ Dan Rose will join as a board observer.
In a statement announcing the deal, TripActions said the funding will be used for international expansion, strengthening its expense management startup in Europe and new offices in Portugal, Germany, France and the UK. The company has acquired several travel management businesses, currently adding more than 2,500 employees.
Why the deal now, ahead of the upcoming IPO? TripActions hasn’t commented on any public listing plans, but it’s not unusual to see a company raise before a financial event of that scale. IPOs take a long time, and are expensive; So TripActions may be bringing in strategic investors to help guide the process, or just cash to provide storage space if the timeline changes due to market volatility.
As we know from last year, big speculation and big money is not a sign of business stability. That said, travel startups were especially tough at the beginning of the pandemic, and the recovery seen through investor capital is clearly worth noting. The company has expanded its business travel platform by bringing fintech and spending into a mixed, diverse yet competitive world.
TripActions didn’t share any specific financials, but the spend management platform said in a release that spend volume growth was more than 7.5X last quarter, and total bookings for business travel were up more than 5X year-over-year.
TechCrunch reached out to TripActions for more information about the raise and IPO, as well as expansion plans, but had not heard back as of press time.
