SoftBank leads TravelPerks $104 million fundraising, in a bet that AI will reshape corporate travel
Summary
The company said Tuesday that it raised the cash in a new equity round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and backed by existing investors Kinnevik and Felix Capital. TravelPerk primarily uses AI technologies like machine learning and neural networks in the back end to help automate a lot of the manual tasks involved in corporate travel — for example, connecting users with the best prices for flights and accommodation. The fundraising round shows SoftBank is placing a major bet on a company driving disruption in corporate travel through new technologies, such as AI — which has seen significant buzz since the November 2022 launch of OpenAIs ChatGPT. An "upround," where a private startup pulls in funds at a higher share price, became a rare event over the last year or two amid sky-high interest rates. TravelPerk had a tough time over the Covid-19 pandemic, when travel of all kinds, not just corporate trips, ground to a halt to stem the spread of the virus.