In what CEO Ariel Cohen says
is a “natural progression” for the travel management company he co-founded in
2015, TripActions is getting into the payments business.
TripActions Liquid is the company’s
new platform that provides both virtual and physical payment cards and is
linked to TripActions’ travel system to streamline compliance, reconciliation
and reporting.
To
fund the credit service, TripActions has raised a debt facility of up to $500
million led by Silicon Valley Bank with participation from Goldman Sachs and
Comerica Bank.
“We
from day one have focused on the end user experience,” Cohen says.
“Now
we feel we have good adoption on the TripActions travel side, and it’s time to
solve another thing – it’s how you pay for travel. It’s a natural progression
for us to continue and focus on our journey to solve things that are clunky and
creating friction while you book your travel and while you’re on the road.”
Cohen
says TripActions Liquid offers the industry’s first payment system with
automated controls tied to travel itineraries and corporate policy.
Employees
use a TripActions Liquid virtual card to pay for online bookings for things
such as airfare and hotels. And then while traveling, employees can have a
TripActions Liquid physical card – operating on Visa’s network – so they don’t
have to use their personal credit card for things such as ride-shares, meals and
incidentals.
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What
makes the system unique, says Cohen, is that through its integration with
TripActions travel platform, the physical card can be configured to “turn on”
and “turn off” so it can only be used when the employee is on a work trip. And
in partnership with AppZen, TripActions Liquid uses artificial intelligence to
ensure purchases are only approved when they align with corporate policy.
“CFOs
are reluctant to give credit cards to all employees because it’s a little scary,”
Cohen says.
“This
gives so much control to the CFOs that now they can optimize for the experience
for the travelers. They can give you a credit card and with this credit card
you can capture all of this information without any type of hassle for the end
user.”
The
platform gives finance and travel managers a global view of bookings and
payments in a single platform, and for travelers eliminates time spent on
reimbursements.
TripActions
says more than a dozen of its travel customers – including Lyft, Letgo, Zoom
and Toast - have been testing the payments platform for the last few months.
“Implementing
TripActions Liquid took minutes, and we’ve seen immediate improvements to our
travel payments process,” says David Wieseneck, vice president of finance at
Letgo.
“With
TripActions Liquid, we’re getting top reviews from travelers who appreciate the
experience, as well as our finance team who love that reconciliation of travel
payments now takes less than 10 minutes.”
Cohen
says TripActions works with third-party vendors to assess the credit-worthiness
of companies that want to use TripActions Liquid. Regarding the debt financing
that is backing the new product, Cohen says, “Institutions want to work with us,
so definitely the terms around the interest rate and generally the terms of
collaterals are very favorable because we as a business have pretty impressive
numbers.”
TripActions
has raised more than $481 million since its launch five years ago and now works
with nearly 4,000 companies with a combined $2.5 billion in annual travel
budgets.
Cohen
says the company has been growing at a rate of 5X year-over-year, and he
expects growth will continue at that rate thanks to the launch of TripActions
Liquid, which will charge customers an annual fee.
“By
helping businesses save considerable time and money, TripActions is poised for
significant growth in the corporate travel space,” says Sunita
Patel, president technology and life sciences division at Comerica Bank.
“We
are pleased to partner with TripActions to provide financing that will enable
them to scale rapidly as they deliver a high-quality customer experience.”