Skift Take
Renowned venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has famously pushed the notion that "software is eating the world." It seems likely the firm believes software is now going to upend how companies book travel, in particular, and that companies like TripActions will profit from the shift.
Silicon Valley stalwart Andreessen Horowitz has led a $154 million Series C investment round in TripActions, a corporate travel startup based in Palo Alto.
Andreessen Horowitz, a top-tier venture capital firm that has backed companies like Airbnb and Lyft, joined repeat investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Zeev Ventures, and SGVC in the round.
TripActions has raised $231 million to date. The latest round placed a billion-dollar valuation on the company.
The deal reflected heightened activity in the sector, where the lines between corporate booking tools, mobile trip-planning apps, and travel-and-expense management tools increasingly blur.
TripActions competitors include TravelPerk, a Barcelona-based company that last month raised a $44 million Series C round. Like TripActions, it claims 700 percent growth, year-on-year, in revenue.
Last year, Baoku, a Beijing-based corporate travel management startup that had raised about $10 million, was acquired by Shiji, the hotel tech giant backed by Alibaba Group.
Earlier this year, in the adjacent category of expense management, Chrome River, a maker of expense reporting software, closed a $35 million Series D funding round. Last year Rydoo, an Antwerp-based travel and expense management startup that had raised $9.5 million, was acquired by Sodexo, the food-service enterprise titan.
Some Sector Skepticism
Whether the prospects for TripActions and its competitors are dull or bright depends on whether you talk to insiders or outsiders in corporate travel.
Long-time corporate travel professionals we spoke with were skeptical that the new players could gain significant long-term traction at stealing business from established travel management companies.
Business travel has been a relatively sleepy travel sector populated by a mix of travel management companies of various s
