Barcelona-Based TravelPerk Announces $21m Series B Funding to Disrupt Business Travel Industry

Today, Barcelona-based business travel booking and management platform TravelPerk are announcing they’ve raised a massive $21m (£15m) in a Series B funding round. This latest announcement brings the disruptive SaaS travel platform’s Series B round to a total of $30m. The funding will be used to rapidly scale the business that’s already making waves in the ever-growing industry of business travel.

Founded in Barcelona in 2015 by CEO Avi Meir and CPO Javier Suarez, TravelPerk is an end-to-end platform that provides business travelers, administrators and finance managers with a one-stop-shop for booking and organizing business travel, from automated travel policies, to  flight and hotel bookings, to itineraries, invoicing and more. CEO Meir says they wanted to reinvent a market previously dominated by “either antiquated enterprise solutions or an alphabet soup of ad hoc consumer tools” to offer the modern road-warrior a streamlined and stress-free solution. An example of a truly disruptive tech company that has found the perfect incubator in Barcelona’s growing startup ecosystem, TravelPerk has been ranked the fastest-growing SaaS company in Europe. They’ve currently got around 1000 customers on their books, a figure set to skyrocket following this funding injection and rapid expansion.

In recent years, the increasing globalization of business and the strengthening of consumer confidence and world economies have led to a boom in the business travel sector. The industry is now worth around $1.25 trillion globally, making it an area ripe for innovation. TravelPerk has stepped into that space with two feet to build the world’s largest bookable inventory, which incorporates alternative options for accommodation and travel such as Airbnb.

The investors behind this round, led by Berlin-based Target Global and London’s Felix Capital, have previously backed familiar names like Slack, Trello, Twitter and Deliveroo. They now turn their hand to TravelPerk, which Target Global General Partner Shmuel Chafets adds is the company’s “first investment in Barcelona. We believe in a pan-European startup ecosystem and we look forward to seeing more opportunities in this emerging startup hub.” Indeed, this investment cements Barcelona’s position as an interconnected and emerging innovation hub which is attracting more startups and investment each year.

But this isn’t just great news for TravelPerk – it also presents exciting opportunities for the Barcelona startup ecosystem as a whole. Their team has already grown from 20 to 100 in the last year, and they’ll be using this round to grow even further. They’ll be recruiting for software engineers, product owners, sales reps and customer support to double in size to 200, in addition to expanding globally with offices in 3-5 new countries by 2019. So if you’re looking for a job, be sure to say Barcinno sent you! Congratulations TravelPerk!