A year ago, TripActions was flying high. The company was firing on all cylinders, having significantly increased revenues and its customers base, grown its international presence, and established itself as an emerging global leader in business travel management.
Then, the pandemic hit. Global travel plummeted. People sheltered in place. And pundits wrote about permanent remote work and the death of business travel.
Immediately, the TripActions co-founders, Ariel Cohen and Ilan Twig, acted swiftly and resolutely to make the hard decisions to stabilize the company. They made difficult, but necessary, cuts across the business. They rationalized and refocused their resources. And then they focused inward to chart their near-term strategy. What could they control and what couldn’t they control? It was clear that the length and depth of the global pandemic was out of their control. But, there was a lot they could control.
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
– Winston Churchill
Rather than retreat, the founders decided to fight.
As an investor, early partner to the company, and board member, I’m proud of and humbled by the team’s execution through the pandemic. In the past 10 months, the company raised capital at the height of uncertainty (April 2020), built industry-first and industry-leading COVID features and expanded its enterprise-class functionality.
Even though very few road warriors were traveling, the company continued to gain market share, especially among larger enterprises and also increased customer count.
Perhaps most impressive is how the company significantly increased product footprint by expanding into expenses and payments with their recently announced TripActions Liquid product line, which has already seen significant uptake among existing as well as new customers.
As a result of Ariel and Ilan’s steady, focused leadership through the pandemic, the company is now stronger and better positioned to win on the global stage than ever before. Indeed, the TripActions founders were unwilling to let a good crisis go to waste, and instead chose to continue to invest strategically in the company’s longterm vision of bringing in-person businesses and their employees the best experiences in business travel.
Today, the company announced that it has raised an additional $155M in capital at a $5B valuation, which represents a valuation increase after the most challenging period in the company’s history. We at Lightspeed are proud to have participated in this round. With the vaccine starting its rollout, we see the light at the end of the tunnel as TripActions prepares for its post-pandemic future.
At Lightspeed, we share Ariel and Ilan’s perspective that all travel, including business travel, is personal. Travel enables relationships and being there in-person really matters. We are bullish that as the pandemic begins to recede as a result of the vaccine, that employees will return to the road, but that they will do so safely and demand a modern, digital-first travel experience. Over 4000 customers already agree with us, and we are excited for the roaring 20s as the world rediscovers travel. Let’s go!
Arif Janmohamed is a Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. He focuses on investments in enterprise IT, Security and SaaS and sits on the boards of a number of rapidly scaling companies, including TripActions, Netskope, Appzen, Moveworks, and CyCognito. In his free time, Arif plays ice hockey with his wife, who yells at him for never passing the puck to her.
Lightspeed is a multi-stage VC firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the enterprise, consumer, and health sectors. Lightspeed has backed 400+ companies globally in the past two decades including Nutanix, Affirm, AppDynamics, MuleSoft, Snap and Nest.
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