Direct Travel, Inc., a leader in corporate travel management, has announced its acquisition by Steve Singh, prominent venture capitalist and founder of the world's largest travel and expense management company, Concur.
Singh is joined by investors including Durable Capital Partners, Madrona Ventures, Top Tier Capital Partners, and Blackstone Credit & Insurance. He will serve as Executive Chairman of Direct Travel while Christal Bemont will assume the role of CEO.
Direct Travel is one of the world's largest travel management companies, serving over 4,500 mid-market and enterprise clients. The company made headlines in Canada in 2017 when it acquired Vision Travel, then the largest independent travel management company in Canada.
"Over the past few years, our investment group has sought out companies that are re-inventing key elements of the travel ecosystem with a goal of delivering a dramatically better value proposition to business travelers, the companies they work for, and the travel providers that serve them,” said Singh.
Concur is the world's largest travel and expense management company.
“We are delighted to invest in and partner deeply with what we believe will be the market leading travel management company. We will invest to meet our customers' current needs, grow our customer base in each of the markets we serve, methodically expand the number of markets we serve, and the breadth of products we deliver to our clients."
As part of the acquisition, long-serving CEO Ed Adams, who founded the company in 2011 and helped establish it as a market leader, plans to retire. Christal Bemont, the newly appointed CEO of Direct Travel, was formerly CEO of Talend, and before that she served as the CRO of SAP Concur. Christal has extensive travel industry experience, having spent over 15 years at SAP Concur, a multi-billion-dollar company operating in 90 countries.
"I want to take this opportunity to recognize and thank Ed. He is an amazing person and accomplished leader who has developed a world-class organization with an unwavering commitment to customer success," said Bemont.
"I look forward to building on this tremendous foundation supporting our existing customers, and, alongside the talented leaders at Direct Travel and several former Concur executives, our goal is to build the most admired and innovative travel management company in the industry."
Bemont continued: "Years ago, Steve laid out a vision for The Perfect Trip. Our announcement is a huge step toward making that vision a reality. Today the innovation begins as we embark on a new era of growth for the benefit of our customers. Together with our technology partners and extensive supplier network, we will continue to invest in proprietary technology around user experience and dynamic client services, all of which we plan to make available as a service to other travel management companies."
The acquisition of Direct Travel comes a week after American Express Global Business Travel’s acquisition of rival CWT in a deal worth US$570 million.
Topics From This Article to Explore
