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Perk (formerly TravelPerk) acquires Click Travel, the biggest travel platform in the UK, to strengthen global leadership position

6 MIN READ

  • Click Travel handles £300 million in business travel for over 2,000 SMB clients, including Five Guys, Red Bull and TalkTalk
  • All 150 Click Travel staff will join the Perk (formerly TravelPerk) team, making Birmingham a new hub for the company and bolstering its dominant position in the UK market.
  • This is Perk’s third and largest acquisition, after the company integrated risk management startup Albatross and US business travel platform NexTravel, and follows Perk’s $160 million Series D funding announcement
  • The move establishes Perk as the largest SMB-focused, tech driven travel management platform globally and the UK’s dominant corporate travel platform
London, Tuesday 6th July 2021: Perk, the largest global travel management platform, has today announced the acquisition of UK corporate travel company Click Travel. The Baupost Group, a Boston-based investment manager with roughly $31b in assets under management, provided capital to Perk to fund the acquisition, which will include Click Travel’s employees, technology and their customer base. It establishes Perk as the leading travel management platform for the SMB market globally and for the UK as a whole. This is Perk's third and largest acquisition and significantly changes the business travel landscape. It marks the latest step in Perk's ambitious strategy to expand its offering to capitalise on the full recovery of business travel and disrupt the $1.3 trillion industry.
Founded in 1999, Click Travel is the UK’s fastest growing corporate travel management company. It reduces the cost and complexity of business travel for its 2,000 business clients, including Five Guys, Red Bull and Talk Talk. Its award-winning all-in-one technology platform helps customers book, manage and report business travel with world-class inventory and 24/7 customer support. The acquisition will combine Click Travel’s UK market expertise and customer base with Perk’s international inventory and innovative suite of products to provide a 7-star experience for global business travelers during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. The entire Click Travel team of 150, based in Birmingham, will be gradually integrated into Perk making the city a new hub that will help bolster Perk’s dominant position in the UK business travel market.
As the only player in the travel industry to continue scaling and growing since the beginning of the pandemic with a strategy that didn’t involve any layoffs, Perk is able to invest strategically in growth during a period of market consolidation. The company’s acquisition strategy is driven by a focus on businesses that share its future-focused, tech-driven approach to travel management. Click Travel is Perk’s third and largest acquisition, following the integration of risk management startup Albatross in July 2020 and the acquisition of US business travel platform NexTravel in January of this year that significantly accelerated Perk’s growth in the US market.
In May 2021, Perk announced $160m in Series D funding, taking the total amount raised to date to $294m. The funding will be used to fuel Perk’s global growth and to invest in further development of innovative solutions for travel in a Covid and post-Covid world, such as Green Trip, Perk’s leading sustainability solution which lets companies offset 100% of their business travel carbon emissions and get real-time, actionable information on their company’s carbon impact; and FlexiTravel, which in an industry-first gives full flexibility for travelers to cancel anytime up until two hours before they travel and guarantees them a minimum refund of 80%.
Avi Meir, CEO and co-founder of Perk, commented:
“We’re really excited to welcome Click Travel’s fantastic and talented team to Perk to build long term growth and to significantly expand our on-the-ground team in the UK. We’re now not just the dominant player in the UK, we’re the leading travel management platform for SMBs globally and the only major travel platform keeping a laser focus on the tech-driven solutions that will stand the test of time.
“Since March last year, our strategy has been to invest massively in our product offering and in our global reach, so that we were well-positioned for the recovery when it came. Today’s news is a major part of that plan”.
“There is no doubt that the business travel market is on track for a full recovery after the disruption of the last year. The meetings that matter will always happen in person and we are already seeing plenty of green shoots in our key markets.”
James McLean, CEO of Click Travel added:
“Click Travel and Perk share the same mission: to reduce the cost and complexity of business travel for everyone involved by offering the best inventory and technology and delighting our customers with superb customer service throughout.
“Those shared objectives, combined with the natural cultural fit between our two companies, means we are incredibly excited to bring our teams together. Combining Perk’s industry-leading knowledge, technology, experience and first class customer support with our own is a powerful proposition and we can’t wait to get started.”
About Perk
Perk is the next-generation business travel platform pioneering the future of business travel. Perk’s all-in-one platform gives travelers the freedom they want whilst providing companies with the control they need. The result is saved time, money, and hassle for everyone.
Perk has the world’s largest travel inventory alongside powerful management features, 24/7 customer support, state-of-the-art technology and consumer-grade design, all of which are enabling companies and organisations worldwide such as TransferWise, Revolut, Monzo, Farfetch and US rugby association, to get the most out of their travel.
Backed by world-class investors like DST, Kinnevik, Target Global, Felix Capital, Greyhound Capital, Spark Capital, Heartcore, LocalGlobe, Amplo, 14W—investors in some of the most disruptive companies in tech including Zalando, Slack, Trello, Twitter, Farfetch and Delivery Hero — Perk is reinventing business travel with an end-to-end solution that works. Visit www.travelperk.com for more information.
About Click Travel
Click Travel provides award-winning business travel management alongside an award-winning booking platform (Winners of Best TMC £200m+ & Best Self Booking Tool, Business Travel Awards 2020) to reduce the cost and complexity of travel management by combining industry- leading customer service with its own technology.
Aggregating content from multiple distribution networks into a unique single platform, Click Travel gives organisations the control to drive savings through behavioural change and policy compliance, combined with expert advice from its offline and account management teams.
Based in the heart of Birmingham UK, Click Travel is home to a group of passionate, dedicated, expert staff who always go the extra mile to provide genuinely outstanding service to a raft of satisfied clients. Visit www.clicktravel.com for more information.