TravelPerk acquires US rival AmTrav, bags $135 million for expansion


TravelPerk buys US rival AmTrav, raises $135 million from Blackstone, BlueOwl

LONDON — TravelPerk, a European corporate travel booking platform, told CNBC on Tuesday it has acquired Chicago-based startup AmTrav to help further its expansion in the U.S.

AmTrav, which operates in the same space as TravelPerk, will continue to operate under the same brand and its entire team will continue with the business.

To help fund the deal and TravelPerk’s broader expansion efforts, the company also raised $135 million in debt financing from private equity firms Blackstone and Blue Owl.

Avi Meir, TravelPerk’s CEO and co-founder, told CNBC the deal would allow the company to turbocharge its growth in the United States. He expects the deal to double TravelPerk’s U.S. revenues and make the country its biggest revenue-generating region by 2026.

“Currently, the U.K. is our biggest market,” Meir said in an interview with CNBC, pointing to the firm’s 2021 purchase of British corporate travel startup of Click Travel as the catalyst for its growth in Britain.

Going forward, Meir said, TravelPerk’s takeover of AmTrav will help support a “deep localization strategy” in the U.S., and enable it to offer customers “better rates and inventory options through deeper relationships with suppliers.”

AmTrav has long had data exchange arrangements in place with airline giants American Airlines and Southwest, he added.

TravelPerk now has over 200 employees based in the U.S. and plans to grow its headcount there by a further 35% by the end of 2024. The company employs more than 1,200 people globally. Last year, the firm saw its U.S. revenues grow 65% year-over-year.

The Global Business Travel Association estimated that the US corporate travel sector was worth $329 billion in 2023.

TravelPerk said its U.S. office footprint would expand to include AmTrav’s offices in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed by TravelPerk.

2 years of M&A talks

Jeff Klee, CEO of AmTrav, told CNBC that the company had been in talks with TravelPerk since 2021, adding he was reluctant to sell the firm he founded without the assurance that his firm’s operations would continue unimpacted by the takeover.

AmTrav was founded in 1989 by co-founders Klee and Fitchtelberg. The pair met as dorm-mates at the University of Michigan. AmTrav offers localized, digital travel management for small to mid-sized firms.

AI’s impact on corporate travel

TravelPerk said that its business and AmTrav would seek to capitalize on proprietary technology and develop new artificial intelligence capabilities.

Meir said he sees AI driving more in-person interactions, pointing to research from the company which found 38% of CEOs think AI will increase the need for in-person meetings facilitated by business travel.

The findings were based on a survey of business travel decision makers, travellers, and managers,

“For TravelPerk, AI is about making humans more efficient, rather than replacing them,” Meir told CNBC. “I believe in human connection. This is why we exist as a company.”

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“We’ve always focused on a human-first approach to implementing AI at TravelPerk, automating back-end tasks so our people have more time to interact with colleagues, customers and partners.”

TravelPerk’s customers include the likes of Betterment, Adyen, Wise and Red Bull. AmTrav counts more than 1,000 businesses as customers.

TravelPerk’s platform allows users to book business flights, hotels, trains and cars across the US, Canada, the UK Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal, India, Singapore, Mexico, Dubai and Israel.

Existing investors in TravelPerk include SoftBank, General Catalyst, Kinnevik, Greyhound Capital, Felix Capital, Target Global, LocalGlobe, Spark Capital and Heartcore.



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