Skift Take
Lola was a good idea with solid execution that fell flat. By partnering with the biggest company in corporate travel, Lola will find out whether its service is actually a fit for businesses around the world. And if not, maybe the mobile-first future isn't quite here yet.
Lola, the startup brainchild of Kayak co-founder Paul English that launched in 2016, finally has a chance to make good on its promise to disrupt travel with artificial intelligence-powered travel agents.
Lola has partnered with American Express Global Business Travel, the largest travel management company in the world, to help bring its service to more customers in the U.S.
The five-year exclusive deal, which is based around a revenue-sharing arrangement, also allows American Express Global Business Travel to purchase equity from Lola should the partnership prove lucrative. "I'd be very happy if GBT ends up owning a lot of Lola," said English.
This deal represents the travel management company's first major push into the less-complex end of the corporate travel market.
"We're very self-aware about where our solutions excel, and this is a market where we have some business and felt like the market was much bigger than what we were tapping into," said Evan Konwiser, vice president of product strategy and marketing at American Express Global Business Travel. "We have been looking for a solution and we happened to have relationships with some people at Lola and we spent the last year-plus aligning the stars on this opportunity to attack this market in a materially more aggressive way than big players or startups have attacked this market in the U.S."
It's something of a best case scenario for Lola, which has weathered multiple pivots over the last few years.
