Business travel management platform TravelPerk was this week ranked
number one in the SaaS1000, a ranking
of the top 1000 software as a service (SaaS) companies compiled by SaaS
magazine. The ranking is calculated using an algorithm which takes hiring
trends, growth indicators and the number of employees into account.
SaaS is the hosting of applications in the cloud rather than on a
company’s own servers or even on the individual computer. It is the difference
between Google Docs and old-school Microsoft Office which you had to install on
your computer.
According to
the ranking, TravelPerk has enjoyed growth of 122% over the past six months.
The only other travel-related company in the top 1000 is Deem (www.deem.com) - at 403rd with 8.79% growth
over the same period.
The top 10 in
this week’s chart:
Source: Saas1000. Note: Companies are not ranked solely on growth.
TravelPerk
was founded in 2015 by Avi Meir—who had previously founded the Hotel Ninjas
start-up which he sold to Booking.com for somewhere between US$10 and US$98
million—and Booking.com’s Javier Suarez and Ron Levin.
According to
Crunchbase, TravelPerk has raised more than US$133 million in funding since its
inception.
Originally
the company’s model was to reward business travellers who booked a trip for
less than the budgeted amount by sharing the savings between them and their
company—a similar concept to that of Rocketrip.
However, more
than 40 meetings with a range of company travel buyers and managers convinced
them that their initial idea was wrong and the company weren’t solving the
right problems.
“We gave in.
Our minimum viable product had to be obliterated. Gone was the sexy,” wrote
co-founder Meir in a LinkedIn post.
Today, the
Barcelona headquartered company, has offices in Berlin, London and Chicago and
is hiring fast; many of the roles on offer are senior
sales roles in key European countries, showing the breadth of its ambition to
expand.
Despite its
fast growth, the company faces stiff competition.
Research from
Gartner predicts that the SaaS market will be worth US$85.1 billion by the end
of 2019 and grow to US$113.1 billion by the end of 2021.
And the SaaS
landscape is getting more crowded. According to research by Price Intelligently,
SaaS companies that were founded in 2012 typically had an average of 2.6
competitors in their first year of business; by 2016, this number had risen to
9.7. The company puts this down to the wider availability of easily deployable cloud infrastructure like AWS and
readymade website builders. “It’s possible to get a company up and running in
less than a day and start collecting leads,” the company said.
TravelPerk’s competitors include not only SaaS rivals like SAP Concur
and GetThere but also traditional travel management companies and hybrids such
as TripActions.
It is hard to
stay at the top of rankings that look at fastest growth and TravelPerk will
certainly drop down as it scales.
Yet part of
the attraction of TravelPerk is its simple and competitive pricing structure.
It charges no transaction fees for people who want to use the platform for
unmanaged travel and €10/£9 per booking for its premium service, which adds in
travel agent service, group booking and the ability to load up corporate
negotiated rates.
TravelPerk is
championing NDC. It signed a deal with Lufthansa in June after a six-month
trial. Meir said at the time, “There's a huge
opportunity here for [NDC] to help us move the needle in bringing the business
travel experience to the next level.”
Other competitors have embraced NDC too but those that have been slower
may find themselves losing business to the SaaS champion.