https://www.lola.com/news/lola.com-raises-37-million-to-transform-corporate-travel
Lola.com Raises $37 Million to Transform Corporate Travel
Led by Existing Investors General Catalyst and Accel, Financing to Help Double Headcount in 2019 and Expand Partner Ecosystem
BOSTON – Mar. 26, 2019 – Lola.com, the Agile Travel Management™ company that provides a super simple way to manage, book, and report on business travel, announced a $37 million Series C funding led by existing investors General Catalyst and Accel. The company will use these additional funds to double headcount this year, accelerate technology development as part of its commercial partnership with American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) and further expand its outreach as it continues to disrupt the $1.6 trillion global travel market. This latest round also includes participation from all previous investors – CRV, Tenaya Capital, and GV.
“Lola.com offers an incredibly simple solution to corporate travel management, which enables American Express Global Business Travel to take our value proposition to even more companies across the middle market,” said Evan Konwiser, Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing for American Express GBT.
The new funding comes on the heels of Lola.com recently reporting 423 percent growth in annual travel bookings and 786 percent in revenue growth, among other successes in 2018. Total funding is nearly $80 million since the corporate travel management company launched.
“As business travelers have become increasingly mobile, Lola.com’s mission is to completely transform the landscape of corporate travel management,” said Mike Volpe, CEO of Lola.com. “The continued support of our investors underscores the market potential, which is leading us to expand our partner ecosystem and double our headcount across engineering, sales and marketing. At the core, we continue to invest in building the best, simplest corporate travel management platform in the industry.”
Lola.com’s customers consistently confirm its simplicity and ease of use, praising the platform on G2 Crowd where it has a 4.8 star rating, making it the highest rated corporate travel app. Lola.com has earned dozens of perfect 5 star ratings, with such reviews as:
“Lola makes it extremely easy to price shop flights and book my travel quickly. They also have incredible customer service and have contacted me multiple times about things like checking in early, changing a flight, and they have true human customer service on their chat bots.”
“From offering to check in for my flights on my behalf to requesting my loyalty programs to add to my reservations, the Lola experience has been world class.”
“Lola has been indispensable in booking my business travel. It's quick and easy, and there is always someone there to help you, if needed. In the event of travel issues, which are inevitable these days, they are proactive, working with the airlines and hotels on your behalf.”
Drift, one of the fastest growing startups in the world, uses Lola.com to simplify its corporate travel.
“We book travel for numerous people, and that process before Lola.com included a lot of back-and-forth, emailing preferences for aisles, windows, and airlines,” said Becky Garber, Executive Assistant at Drift. “Now, anyone traveling for Drift can simply log in, book their flight and immediately put it on the corporate card. There’s no back-and-forth on when they can and can’t fly or which city they prefer, and they don’t have to check back on approvals. We simply give them access to the app, and they just book it. Essentially, Lola.com has taken our entire process down from three days to 10 minutes.”
As 1.3 million people travel for business every day in the U.S. alone, Lola.com is reinventing corporate travel by making it more simplified, flexible, and accessible. See how Lola.com can help your business save time on corporate travel by scheduling a demo today: https://www.lola.com/schedule
About General Catalyst
General Catalyst is a venture capital firm with approximately $5B in total capital raised that makes seed through growth-stage investments. We back fearless entrepreneurs with the potential to build foundational enterprise technologies and ubiquitous consumer brands. With offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, New York City, and Boston, our portfolio companies benefit from a bicoastal network of talent, customers, and opportunity. For more: www.generalcatalyst.com.
About Accel
Accel is a leading venture capital firm that partners with exceptional founders with unique insights, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Algolia, Avito, Celonis, Cloudera, Crowdstrike, Deliveroo, DJI, Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Funding Circle, Kayak, Kry, QlikTech, Rovio, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, UIPath and WorldRemit are among the companies the firm has backed over the past 35+ years. The firm seeks to understand entrepreneurs as individuals, appreciate their originality and play to their strengths. Because greatness doesn't have a stereotype. For more, visit www.accel.com, www.facebook.com/accel or www.twitter.com/accel.
About Lola.com
Lola.com makes Agile Travel Management™ real by providing a super simple way to manage, book and report on business travel, saving employers and travelers time and money. Happy employee travel experiences within a policy can be set up in five minutes. Lola.com uses machine learning and 24/7 support to help travelers easily book trips, while empowering managers to create policies, view budgets and expenditures, and monitor their globetrotting team efficiently. Based in Boston, the company was founded in 2015 by Paul English, co-founder of the travel booking site KAYAK, and is led by CEO Mike Volpe, previously CMO at HubSpot. For more information, visit https://www.lola.com/ and connect on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Contact:
Tracy Wemett
BroadPR
+1-617-868-5031
American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) is a joint venture that is not wholly owned by American Express Company or any of its subsidiaries (American Express). “American Express Global Business Travel,” “American Express,” and the American Express logo are trademarks of American Express and are used under limited license. LOLA, the Lola Logo, and Agile Travel Management are trademarks of Lola Travel Company, Inc.
All trademarks recognized.
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