Yokoy, the leading spend management platform, has been acquired by TravelPerk, a business travel platform based in Barcelona. In parallel, TravelPerk announced the closing of a financing round in which it was valued at USD 2.7 billion.
Yokoy, founded in 2019 in Zurich, is today market-leader in Europe for AI-powered expense, invoice, and card payment processing. TravelPerk and Yokoy have collaborated since 2020, successfully partnering to jointly offer travel and expense management to customers such as Breitling, On Running, and Medskin.
Through its acquisition of Yokoy, and deep integrations via an open ecosystem of strategic expense management partners, TravelPerk is positioned to provide customers in Europe and the US highly localised solutions, to suit their individual needs, preserving customers freedom of choice and flexibility, which is a key tenet of the TravelPerk value proposition.
Yokoy was acquired in an all-equity deal, with Sequoia Capital, the prominent American venture capital firm, now joining TravelPerk’s cap table alongside its existing investors. Philippe Sahli, Co-founder and CEO of Yokoy commented: “Given our successful collaboration to-date, and the compelling vision for the future of integrated travel and expense management, we are excited to come together as one company and are confident in the unprecedented experience we can together deliver to customers.”
As companies face greater economic pressures and more complicated regulatory environments, they are increasingly demanding a fully integrated solution that brings travel and expenses together into one automated platform, to simplify the end-to-end experience, streamline processes, and help them better control costs.
In parallel with the acquisition Travelperk announced a Series E fundraise of $200 million. The investment is led by European venture capital firm Atomico, alongside EQT Growth. The oversubscribed round nearly doubles TravelPerk’s valuation to $2.7 billion.
The acquisition of Yokoy and Series E funding came off the back of another year of growth at TravelPerk. The company has achieved a unique combination of growth and profitability at scale - with annualised booking volumes of over $2.5 billion, annualised revenue of over $200 million, growth of over 50% per annum in the last two years, and reaching EBITDA break-even at the end of 2024.
Avi Meir, TravelPerk CEO and Co-Founder, commented: "Our focus has never been stronger as we expand across core markets, accelerate growth in the US, and now work to become the number one travel and expense management platform.” He continued: "Our partnership with Yokoy has already been a great success, and we are excited to take it to the next level by welcoming Phil, Devis, and the rest of the team to TravelPerk. We share a common vision for the role of AI reshaping the future of travel and expense management, and the innovation coming out of Yokoy’s AI labs in Zurich is seriously impressive.”
(Press release / SK)
The new Swiss Venture Capital Report was published on 26 January. It analyses 304 financing rounds closed in 2020 and includes further article such as an interview with Michael Hengartner, President of the ETH Board, and a list of Swiss "soonicorns". 
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