Barcelona-based TravelPerk, one of the largest global travel management platforms, has today announced the acquisition of UK corporate travel company Click Travel. This is TravelPerk’s third and largest acquisition, and marks the latest step in TravelPerk’s ambitious strategy to expand its offering to capitalise on the full recovery of business travel and disrupt the industry.
The Baupost Group, a Boston-based investment manager, provided capital to TravelPerk to fund the acquisition, which will include Click Travel’s employees, technology and their customer base.
Founded in 2015, Barcelona-based TravelPerk has grown to 450+ employees in 6 years, and continues to be positive about the future of the business travel sector, as seen in our interview with co-founder Avi Meir and his guest piece on EU-Startups this month). TravelPerk has the world’s largest travel inventory alongside powerful management features, 24/7 customer support, state-of-the-art technology and consumer-grade design, all of which are enabling companies and organisations worldwide such as TransferWise, Revolut, Monzo, Farfetch and US rugby association, to get the most out of their travel.
Founded in 1999, Click Travel is the UK’s fastest growing corporate travel management company. It reduces the cost and complexity of business travel for its 2,000 business clients, including Five Guys, Red Bull and Talk Talk. Its award-winning all-in-one technology platform helps customers book, manage and report business travel with world-class inventory and 24/7 customer support. The acquisition will combine Click Travel’s UK market expertise and customer base with TravelPerk’s international inventory and innovative suite of products to provide a 7-star experience for global business travellers during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The entire Click Travel team of 150, based in Birmingham, will be gradually integrated into TravelPerk making the city a new hub that will help bolster TravelPerk’s dominant position in the UK business travel market.
As one of the only players in the travel industry to continue scaling and growing since the beginning of the pandemic with a strategy that didn’t involve any layoffs, Barcelona-based TravelPerk is able to invest strategically in growth during a period of market consolidation. The company’s acquisition strategy is driven by a focus on businesses that share its future-focused, tech-driven approach to travel management. Click Travel is TravelPerk’s third and largest acquisition, following the integration of risk management startup Albatross in July 2020 and the acquisition of US business travel platform NexTravel in January of this year that significantly accelerated TravelPerk’s growth in the US market.
In May 2021, TravelPerk announced an €134 million ($160 million) in Series D funding, taking the total amount raised to date to €247 million ($294 million). The funding will be used to fuel TravelPerk’s global growth and to invest in further development of innovative solutions for travel in a COVID and post-COVID world, such as GreenPerk, TravelPerk’s leading sustainability solution which lets companies offset 100% of their business travel carbon emissions and get real-time, actionable information on their company’s carbon impact; and FlexiPerk, which in an industry-first gives full flexibility for travelers to cancel anytime up until two hours before they travel and guarantees them a minimum refund of 80%. TravelPerk also recently announced a partnership with Skyscanner that will see the online travel agency take travel restriction information directly from TravelPerk’s TravelSafe API to use in its interactive destination map.
Avi Meir, CEO and co-founder of TravelPerk, commented: “We’re really excited to welcome Click Travel’s fantastic and talented team to TravelPerk to build long term growth and to significantly expand our on-the-ground team in the UK. We’re now not just the dominant player in the UK, we’re the leading travel management platform for SMBs globally and the only major travel platform keeping a laser focus on the tech-driven solutions that will stand the test of time. Since March last year, our strategy has been to invest massively in our product offering and in our global reach, so that we were well-positioned for the recovery when it came. Today’s news is a major part of that plan”.
He continued: “There is no doubt that the business travel market is on track for a full recovery after the disruption of the last year. The meetings that matter will always happen in person and we are already seeing plenty of green shoots in our key markets.”
James McLean, CEO of Click Travel added: “Click Travel and TravelPerk share the same mission: to reduce the cost and complexity of business travel for everyone involved by offering the best inventory and technology and delighting our customers with superb customer service throughout. Those shared objectives, combined with the natural cultural fit between our two companies, means we are incredibly excited to bring our teams together. Combining TravelPerk’s industry-leading knowledge, technology, experience and first class customer support with our own is a powerful proposition and we can’t wait to get started.”
