Travel Startup TripActions Hires First CFO
December 11 2019 - 11:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Nina Trentmann
TripActions Inc. named its first chief financial officer as the
corporate travel services company eyes continued expansion and an
eventual public offering.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company hired Thomas Tuchscherer for
the newly created role. Mr. Tuchscherer joins following a stint as
CFO of Snowflake Inc., a data management firm, which ended in
September. His prior roles include CFO of data integration firm
Talend SA and vice president for product and business strategy at
German software giant SAP SE.
Mr. Tuchscherer, who was involved with Talend's 2016 initial
public offering, declined to provide details on IPO plans at
TripActions, but said in an interview: "Getting the company ready
for an IPO is a prospect."
TripActions had a valuation of about $4 billion in June,
following a $250 million funding round led by venture-capital firm
Andreessen Horowitz. Since its inception, TripActions has raised
$480 million from investors.
TripActions' software aims to simplify travel arrangements by
using machine learning to suggest hotels and flights based on
previous bookings made by people in the same organization.
"In order for travel solutions to be successful, you need to
have a product that users love," Mr. Tuchscherer said.
The company manages about $2 billion in travel budgets and has
more than 3,000 corporate clients around the world. Its clients
include ride-hailing company Lyft Inc., Zoom Technologies Inc. and
software firm Okta Inc. The company didn't provide details of its
finances, but said it has nearly tripled its staff to around 1000
in the last 12 months.
TripActions needs to grow its business to compete successfully
with big players in the industry such as SAP's Concur, said Kevin
Permenter, a research manager at market intelligence company IDC.
"One of the benefits of using these travel booking tools is getting
access to discounted tickets and rates," he said. "It helps to be
able to make large commitments to get certain discounts."
Signing up larger corporate customers could be a challenge for
TripActions, Ms. Strachan added. "Their biggest task will be
scaling up to Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies and their
complex travel needs," she said.
Global spending on business travel totaled $1.41 trillion in
2018, up 5.7% from 2017, and was expected to go up by 3.5% this
year, according to a recent study by the Global Business Travel
Association.
Mr. Tuchscherer will play a key role in managing the company's
growth and in making sure its internal systems and processes are
aligned. He said he would focus on automating tasks in
TripActions's finance function, which has between 15 and 20
staff.
Write to Nina Trentmann at Nina.Trentmann@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 11, 2019 11:14 ET (16:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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