TripActions Unifies Corporate Travel Management, Payments

The Palo Alto-based travel tech unicorn TripActions has secured a new, $500 million credit facility to help advance the introduction of its corporate card product, the company announced on Tuesday (Feb. 25).

TripActions Liquid gives corporate users a virtual and real credit card so traveling employees can avoid having to pay on personal cards and get reimbursed. It also solves the problem of global travel payments.

The funding was led by Silicon Valley Bank with participation from Goldman Sachs and Comerica Bank.

“TripActions is the only complete, end-to-end corporate travel management solution for finance teams and travel managers, combining the best online booking tool, travel management company and travel payments solution into a single platform,” said Samantha DeRosa, senior accounting manager at Toast. “It’s a no-brainer to use TripActions Liquid with the TripActions corporate travel platform – it’s booking and payments integrated seamlessly to make travel spend management a breeze.”

TripActions Liquid also leverages partners like AppZen, an artificial intelligence (AI) solution that enables spend approvals within policy. The collaboration with Visa means that TripActions Liquid users can use the card anywhere Visa is accepted – at over 46 million merchants in more than 200 countries and territories.

“Everyone who touches accounting knows that travel payment reconciliation is an issue, but it was always one of those ‘necessary evils’ you had to deal with,” said Vik Shah, corporate controller at Zoom. “I wasn’t surprised when TripActions came to me with a solution. What impressed me, though, was how effective it is. TripActions Liquid is a major time-saver – we’ve been able to reduce travel payment reconciliation time from weeks to minutes each month.”

Finance leaders and travel managers can set custom policies to manage travel spend in real time. In addition, seamless integration with the TripActions corporate travel platform auto-enables the traveling employee’s card for travel-related purchases.

Back-end work is also reduced since bookings, payments and reconciliation are done within a single platform. TripActions also offers a rebate on all spend processed through TripActions Liquid.

Thanks to eCommerce and digital payments, the global travel industry has been undergoing significant disruption.