Trippeo recently launched its end-to-end flight booking portal, aiming to make travel bookings for business faster and easier than ever. The Vancouver-based startup is adding this new functionality to its app that already lends itself to end-to-end travel expense tracking.
With the launch, Trippeo is looking to fill a gap in how companies currently track flights, hotels, meals, and other expenses – typically, using a disconnected assortment of tools. “If you call any company and ask how they do their expenses, they’ll say they have a travel agent, or are using spreadsheets for one thing, software for another – but no one is doing it all-in-one,” said CEO Adarsh Pallian. “With this, you’re booking directly with us, getting a detailed itinerary of the flight while tracking everything from hotel bills to Uber to dinners and more, all neatly categorized.”
The goal is to give administrators and travel coordinators the ability to set travel policies that help curb and manage corporate travel budgets, getting rid of the slower, costlier way of booking manually on different systems. “We’re very excited to get this out in the wild,” Pallian said – and there’s more on the way. “This is the first in a series of updates we have planned to extend Trippeo beyond the expense management realm. I want Trippeo to set the standard for our industry.”
While this marks a new milestone for the company, Trippeo is already seeing healthy growth, with growing revenues and signups, Pallian said. He acknowledged, however, that the company faced growing pains in terms of getting financing in a field where tech giants are competing as well, and in hiring the right kind of talent. “We had to get rid of some people who didn’t have the startup mindset, which has equated to delays. It’s still challenging to find people who can work long days for the good of the company – but at the same time, we do see momentum. We had a funding round last year that helped and since then, it’s just been about heads-down building and selling.”
Related: Trippeo’s Adarsh Pallian on finding the gaps in huge industries