Even as the grounding of the Max 9 prompted Alaska Airlines to cancel thousands of flights in January, the carrier came out relatively unscathed in the first quarter. And that’s partly because its business travel fully recovered to 2019 levels.
02.04.2024 - 13:33 / skift.com / Justin Dawes
Steve Singh, co-founder of Concur, and a group of firms have fully acquired the corporate travel agency Direct Travel. And they’re planning to release a new platform for customers later this year that combines several new technologies from Direct Travel and three other startups that Singh has a stake in.
The group — which includes firms Durable Capital Partners, Madrona Ventures, Top Tier Capital Partners, and Blackstone Credit & Insurance — have purchased the company from the private venture capital firm Antares Capital and other debt providers, Singh said.
Price and terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Singh, managing partner of Madrona Ventures, is now executive chairman of Direct Travel.
Christal Bemont, who spent nearly 16 years at SAP Concur, most recently as chief revenue officer, is now the CEO of Direct Travel. As part of the deal, Ed Adams is retiring from his role as CEO of Direct Travel.
This is the second big corporate travel agency acquisition announcement recently. Amex GBT last week said it plans to acquire CWT for $570 million.
Direct Travel was founded in 2011 and is based in Denver, with 80 offices in North America and the UK. It has a total of about 1,800 employees.
Travel Weekly ranks the company among the largest corporate travel agents in the world.
It has more than 4,500 clients, mostly in the middle market, though they also include large companies such as PayPal.
Direct Travel generates over $300 million in revenue annually, and it’s growing by about 10% each year, Singh said.
“We think we can actually improve that growth rate to 15% to 20% over the course of the next year, and we think we can maintain that 15% to 20% growth rate for years to come,” Singh said in an interview with Skift.
Singh sold Concur to SAP in 2014 for $8.3 billion.
Singh and the other investors have been looking for acquisition opportunities in the corporate travel space for about a year, he said.
He and the same group of firms have invested together in startups Spotnana, Troop, and Center. Singh is executive chairman of all four companies, and Madrona Ventures is the largest investor.
The plan is to release a platform for Direct Travel customers that integrates the technologies and services of all four of these companies. Each company will continue operating independently, as well.
Spotnana has raised over $100 million to rebuild the infrastructure of corporate travel agency bookings, away from the traditional global distribution systems and the incentives they provide to agents for booking certain products. In travel industry lingo, that’s what’s known as new distribution capabilities.
Troop, which has raised around $20 million, is a platform meant to help companies plan, book, expense, and
Even as the grounding of the Max 9 prompted Alaska Airlines to cancel thousands of flights in January, the carrier came out relatively unscathed in the first quarter. And that’s partly because its business travel fully recovered to 2019 levels.
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