travel er tech chicago

This job has expired or has been filled.

Privacy overview.

Concur Founder Steve Singh and Firms Acquire Direct Travel

Justin Dawes , Skift

April 2nd, 2024 at 8:00 AM EDT

Steve Singh believes corporate travel is ready for new technology, and he believes the right company can displace the old ones.

Justin Dawes

Steve Singh, co-founder of Concur, and a group of firms have fully acquired the corporate travel agency Direct Travel . And they’re planning to release a new platform for customers later this year that combines several new technologies from Direct Travel and three other startups that Singh has a stake in.

The group — which includes firms Durable Capital Partners, Madrona Ventures, Top Tier Capital Partners, and Blackstone Credit & Insurance — have purchased the company from the private venture capital firm Antares Capital and other debt providers, Singh said.

Price and terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Singh, managing partner of Madrona Ventures, is now executive chairman of Direct Travel.

Christal Bemont , who spent nearly 16 years at SAP Concur, most recently as chief revenue officer, is now the CEO of Direct Travel. As part of the deal, Ed Adams is retiring from his role as CEO of Direct Travel.

This is the second big corporate travel agency acquisition announcement recently. Amex GBT last week said it plans to acquire CWT for $570 million .

Direct Travel was founded in 2011 and is based in Denver, with 80 offices in North America and the UK. It has a total of about 1,800 employees.

Travel Weekly ranks the company among the largest corporate travel agents in the world.

It has more than 4,500 clients, mostly in the middle market, though they also include large companies such as PayPal. 

Direct Travel generates over $300 million in revenue annually, and it’s growing by about 10% each year, Singh said. 

“We think we can actually improve that growth rate to 15% to 20% over the course of the next year, and we think we can maintain that 15% to 20% growth rate for years to come,” Singh said in an interview with Skift. 

Singh sold Concur to SAP in 2014 for $8.3 billion .

What’s Next for Direct Travel

Singh and the other investors have been looking for acquisition opportunities in the corporate travel space for about a year, he said. 

He and the same group of firms have invested together in startups Spotnana, Troop, and Center. Singh is executive chairman of all four companies, and Madrona Ventures is the largest investor. 

The plan is to release a platform for Direct Travel customers that integrates the technologies and services of all four of these companies. Each company will continue operating independently, as well. 

Spotnana has raised over $100 million to rebuild the infrastructure of corporate travel agency bookings, away from the traditional global distribution systems and the incentives they provide to agents for booking certain products. In travel industry lingo, that’s what’s known as new distribution capabilities . 

Troop, which has raised around $20 million , is a platform meant to help companies plan, book, expense, and manage logistics for in-person meetings. 

Center, an expense management platform that provides corporate cards to clients’ employees, has raised a total of $140 million . 

The plan is that the single platform will also include AI integrations, including a trip planner that accepts prompts in natural language, and a way to automatically deliver options in response to travel disruptions. 

“What the corporate travel space is really due for is a transformation. The reality is this industry operates on legacy technology stacks, siloed information, disjointed experiences,” Singh said.

“We think that there’s an opportunity for a next-generation [travel management company] to emerge as the leader in this space. We think there’s an opportunity to, frankly, displace many of the technology providers that exist in this space who are all building on top of legacy systems.”

The Vision Behind the Plans

Connecting all four of these travel companies is part of Singh’s long-term vision of “the perfect trip,” or as others in the industry call it, “the connected trip.”

It’s the idea that all travel companies involved in a trip should have easy access to that traveler’s data, with permission, which would theoretically enable a more seamless experience for the traveler. In today’s world, a traveler who books a flight through an agency would usually need to return to the agency to change that flight because the airline doesn’t automatically receive the customer’s booking data. In the world of the “perfect” or “connected” trip, the traveler could change the flight directly with the airline. 

Singh also emphasized that the coming platform will be built with an open technological infrastructure, meaning that clients can choose to connect third-party software and build their own suite of products. It’s more common with next-generation hotel management tech, but not corporate travel. 

“To me, this is what’s been the problem in the travel industry for the last decade: People have been protecting their existing models and not innovating on behalf of the customer, not innovating on behalf of the supplier. And whenever you do that, it opens up opportunities for those that are willing.”

Skift AI Travel Newsletter

AI coverage across travel sectors that’s focused on separating trendy moves from good ideas – in your inbox every Friday.

Have a confidential tip for Skift? Get in touch

Tags: artificial intelligence , concur , corporate travel , direct travel , madrona ventures , spotnana , steve singh

Photo credit: Pictured: Business traveler walking in the Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Flickr

‘The Way Home’ Creators Break Down That Mind-Bending Season 2 Finale Twist

By Megan Vick

• ‘Good Trouble’ Co-Creator Breaks Down the Series Finale’s Emotional Farewell: ‘Will We Be Remembered?’ 4 weeks ago

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “Bring Me to Life,” the Season 2 finale of  Hallmark’s “ The Way Home ,” which streams on Peacock and Hallmark Movies Now.

Those flashbacks  mean that Colton is a time traveler, and was using the pond long before young Jacob, Alice (Sadie-LaFlemme Snow), or Kat jumped into the mysterious water attached to the Landry farm. This revelation shifts a lot of things we thought we knew about the series, and raises a host of new questions. 

In the finale, it also seemed like Elliot (Evan Williams) made a breakthrough episode about the rules of the pond, allowing him to travel back to 1999 with Alice to get his five extra minutes with Colton. Elliot postured that people can travel in tandem with the Landry women, but not go into the future. However, this Colton twist brings the second part of that theory into question. 

But that wasn’t the end for Season 2 finale bombshells. The episode also raised questions about Casey Goodwin (Vaughan Murrae), who showed up miraculously to tell Del that the Goodwin family would no longer be purchasing the Landry farm. When they delivered the new paperwork, Alice noticed that Casey was wearing a ring around their neck that looked suspiciously like Brady’s (Al Mukadam) and Kat’s engagement ring that Kat had given to Alice earlier in the season. So now we must question whether Casey is also a time-traveler, and what is her true relationship to the Landry family. 

How long have you been planning this Colton twist?

Alex Clarke: For a while. This show is so complex, and is three different shows at any given time. Everything has to kind of intertwine with one era informing another, so yes, you have to know the end before you begin. The idea of Colton as a potential time-traveler was in our minds in the beginning of Season 1. What is so nice is that Jefferson, who plays Colton, has always played the role in this incredibly enigmatic way where you are not sure if he’s recognizing people, if knows more than we’re sharing — and it’s really been such a gift to watch. Now, as we go into Season 3, you can look back and notice the little nuances that you don’t notice the first time you watch an episode. He did a miraculous job with that. 

Does that mean he knew it was adult Elliot in the finale? 

Clarke: We can neither confirm nor deny! That’s what’s so great about Jefferson’s performance. All we will say is that we will answer a lot of these questions in Season 3. 

Are there any scenes that you recommend fans go back and rewatch in light of this twist? 

Heather Conkie: I expect the audience will go back and do exactly as Alex said, and watch all of the Colton scenes and see them from a slightly different perspective now. 

Clarke: I think one of the things we were heavily influenced by when we first got into the writers’ room was “The Sixth Sense.” Our goal was always that moment at the end of the season where you go, “Wait, what?!” And then you rewatch the whole thing with this new piece of information, and see things in different lights…

This massive revelation in Season 2 is not just that Colton is a time-traveler, but also why does Casey have a ring around their neck that looks like Alice’s? 

What does the Colton revelation mean for Elliot’s “Flynn Factor” theory? Is that completely null and void, because Colton obviously can go into the future?

Clarke: Any rule that we explain in the show is usually the right one. At our core, we follow the rules of the pond, because the minute we stop following the rules is the minute we lose the trust of the audience. We have the whole list. We have them up in the office and are very, very careful not to stray from the rules. We can find loopholes, or we can approach that rule in a different way, and that’s hard. But Elliot’s Flynn factor is important to the series. 

You also put in a scene between Del and Evelyn Goodwin a few episodes ago that felt ominous, and did not give a lot of context. Are we going to find out more about what happened between those two and Colton in Season 3?

Jacob returns to the present in the finale, but we do not see him reunite with Del. What made you decide to save that for later? 

Conkie : It felt right. As Alex said, we only have a limited time and it felt like that moment [between Del and Jacob] was too big a moment to squeeze in. It is inevitable. It will happen. 

Clarke : This season was also really a story about Kat bringing Jacob home. It was about her quest to save him and the ultimate question was, can she bring him home? That question we did answer:Yes, and now her quest is done. She achieved that moment. Any reunion with Del is obviously something we all want to see, but that’s another story. The story that we were telling this season was about Kat. As a result, that moment of them heading towards the house and her being the one to say, “I wish dad could see this,” propels us to these big reveal moments. It was her story. We told her story. 

Obviously, with all of our stories, there’s never really an end, or every end creates a new beginning. That’s something that we were really mindful of going into Season 3. The idea that every ending is a new beginning is quite a theme. 

Does ending this chapter mean that Kat won’t be tempted to go back to 1814 even if she now knows Thomas is still alive?

Clarke: We only give you as much as you need. That’s kind of the motto of the show. [Finding out that Thomas is alive] is a moment that raises a lot of questions for Kat, if and when she and Jacob walk through that kitchen door and what comes next. 

Kat and Elliot kind of end on a question mark this season. What do those questions mean for their relationship? 

Clarke: I think her closing that chapter is going to open up time for her and Elliot in a way that she never really has been able to give him. Kat is an incredibly impulsive person. She is someone that once she sets her mind to something, she won’t ever give up on it until it’s done, and potentially at the cost of a lot of other things that maybe she’s not even aware of. It will be interesting to see her character start to refocus her priorities. 

Elliot has a “let there be light” epiphany at the end of the episode. Is he fully healed from the trauma of losing Colton now after getting to time travel? 

Conkie: That was him breaking through not just a wall, but a whole way of thinking and regret. It may open him up in a different way. I think it will change that. He’s taking that step, and just bursting through that wall he put up around himself. 

I think both Kat and Elliot are coming to each other with different perspectives now. Kat’s quest is done, but what’s next? Elliot also has way more understanding of why she has done what she’s done. That will leave them in a really interesting place next season. 

Obviously, you can’t reveal who Casey Goodwin is to the Landrys, but what are your conversations like with your actors when you know there is going to be a major twist with their character? How much warning do you give them? 

Conkie : I’ve always felt as a writer that it’s better to keep actors in the dark in a way, because they react to it immediately when it happens, as opposed to them thinking ahead of time. It’s always the case, but with Vaughan Murrae it was different. I think they had a theory when they got the role. They knew a little bit. They were a person who watched Season 1 with their mom, and they were a fan. So it was incredible for them to come play amongst people that they’ve been watching. 

Clarke : To your point, Mom, I think even that very first day they kind of had an idea of where we were going with the character. 

Del was developing a romance all season and was finally starting to really open up in these final episodes. What is reuniting with her long-lost son going to do to her drive to be with someone again? 

Conkie: Alex and I have thought very hard about how would you handle that after 20-odd years of acceptance that it is never going to happen. It’s bound to change a person in a huge number of ways. Do you go back to treating that 32-year-old like an eight-year-old? Are you overly possessive? Do you push aside every single thing in your life? Other than that, just to get to know this person again, this adult, it’s bound to have a massive effect on Del. It’s going to have a massive effect on Port Haven, because they were such a part of this horrific disappearance and keeping her going in her time of absolute grief. It’s going to affect her relationships, for sure, with everyone. 

Clarke: One of the things we always keep in mind is this idea of a happily ever after. That is such a happily ever after moment of a son who has been missing for 24 years walking through the door. What comes after that, though? It’s not like we freeze in time, close the book and we’re done. Happily ever after is a bit of a myth because there is always something after and inevitably it has its own challenges as much as it is a happy ending in the moment. 

What is the overall percentage chance that we’re going to see Andie McDowell jump in this pond in Season 3?

Clarke: We are asking ourselves that exact question in the writers’ room. Never say never with anything on our show.We pride ourselves on jaw-drop moments, so there will definitely be more. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.

More From Our Brands

Beyoncé tips her hat to innovators who defied ‘any label placed upon them’, michael strahan wore a blue ‘star trek’-inspired de bethune watch at the knicks game, lsu’s flau’jae johnson signs nil deal with the athlete’s foot, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, all american season 6 premiere recap: just how long was that time jump and will ‘spelivia’ survive it, verify it's you, please log in.