Corporate travel tech platform Spotnana nabs $75M

Spotnana, a self-proclaimed “travel-as-a-service” platform that targets corporations, travel management firms, and other technology companies with a cloud-based toolset for booking and managing travel, has raised $75 million in a series B round of funding.

The raise comes less than a year after Spotnana exited stealth with $41 million in funding, and the latest cash injection is perhaps indicative of the world slowly returning to normal as businesses resume at least some degree of travel.

Founded out of New York in 2019, Spotnana touts itself as a “unified cloud-based platform,” one that gives a consistent interface and booking experience to each user — it serves as a single platform for both travelers and agents, who can see the same travel inventory, profiles, policies, and rates, all at the same time.

But Spotnana can be used in different ways, either as a full standalone product replete with interface, or as an API that allows third-parties to take Spotnana’s infrastructure and build their own products. At its core, Spotnana is about bringing “consumer-grade” booking technologies into the enterprise, while simultaneously allowing anyone to leverage its booking engine and data integrations.

“It’s our mission to rebuild the infrastructure of the travel industry in order to bring freedom, simplicity, and trust to travelers everywhere,” Spotnana cofounder and CEO Sarosh Waghmar said in a press release. “The infrastructure that has been in place for decades puts huge barriers between suppliers and travelers.”

Spotnana interface

Corporate travel bounces back

The global business travel market was a $700 billion industry in 2020, according to data from Allied Market Research, a figure that was surprisingly high given that the world was in a pandemic-driven lockdown. But as corporate travel begins to crank back into gear, the sector is expected to hit the giddy heights of $2 trillion within six years.

Elsewhere, there is evidence that investors are starting to view travel tech companies favorably again. Just last year, corporate travel company TripActions hit a $7.25 billion valuation, though this was in part due to its expansion into broader corporate expenses — even work-at-home employees need to buy things.

Spotnana, meanwhile, has a fairly impressive team of people at the helm. Waghmar previously started another digital travel management company called WTMC, while CTO Shikhar Agarwal formerly worked at Google Brain. And then there’s executive chairman Steve Singh, who founded travel expense management company Concur before selling to SAP for more than $8 billion in 2014. In 2020, Singh joined Madrona Venture Group as managing director, and co-led Spotnana’s series A round of funding.

Spotnana’s series B round of funding was led by Durable Capital Partners LP, with participation from Madrona Venture Group, Iconiq Growth, Mubadala Capital, and Blank Ventures.