Itilite, a Bengaluru, India-based startup developing T&E software, raised US $29 million in a Series C round headed by Tiger Global and existing investor Dharana Capital, with Matrix Partners and Tenacity Ventures participation, on April 14, 2022.
For the better part of the last two years, the pandemic has put a stop to almost all corporate travel. This has, understandably, affected investor interest in travel and expense (T&E) firms, which specialize in developing software for travel and other forms of expensing. T&E is re-emerging as a category of interest as the appetite for in-person events and interactions returns to what it once was.
What the founders have to say:
CEO Mayank Kukreja:
“The money will go into “aggressively expanding in North America via product innovation, sales and marketing, and relationship growth,” according to the company.
As [former] road warriors who spent more than 200 nights a year on the road on business travel and as consultants who helped organizations worldwide balance cost and employee experience, [we] realized that business travel and the systems that supported it were inefficient and flawed.
The vast disconnect between personal and professional travel operations created an intriguing possibility. Even as personal travel became more frictionless and “digital,” business travel was still plagued by time-consuming manual processes, convoluted approval frameworks, and a lack of efficient cost controls. Itilite was born as a result.”
More About the Industry & Itilite:
Grand View Research estimates that the T&E market will be valued at $17.4 billion by 2027. Competitors include Concur, TripActions, and Expensify. (According to IDC, Concur controlled over half of the global T&E market in 2018.) However, Kukreja states that Itilite has over 300 customers in the United States and India, ranging from Fortune 500 businesses to startups. While he wouldn’t reveal revenue figures, he did say that trip bookings on Itilite’s service soared by 200 percent over pre-pandemic levels, and the company’s user acquisition rate tripled.
Kukreja and Khadiya (The other founder) wanted to create a solution that could automate T&E operations by offering travelers customized options based on their preferences and previous searches via Itilite, which is meant to interact with existing business systems. Itilite, for example, may generate expense reports automatically based on trip data and remind employees to file them. In addition, the product incentivizes employees to make “cost-conscious” travel decisions by offering tiny benefits in exchange.
Itilite also has built-in fraud prevention capabilities that use artificial intelligence to detect submission problems. Depending on which survey data you believe, this is a required feature. In a 2014 study, T&E expenditure firm Certify discovered that firms lost an average of $30,000 due to expense fraud reports such as mischaracterized expenses, fabricated expenses, inflated expenses, and duplicate reimbursements.
“We’re gaining clients faster than we’ve ever seen before. This also indicates that business travel has made a significant comeback and will continue to do so in the months ahead,” Kukreja said, adding that Itilite intends to expand its 300-person workforce this year.
We try our 2022 best to fact-check and bring the best, well-researched, and non-plagiarized content to you. Please let us know
-if there are any discrepancies in any of our published stories,
-how we can improve,-what stories you would like us to cover and what information you are looking for, in the comments section below or through our contact form! We look forward to your feedback, and thank you for stopping by! Next Article
