Rocketrip’s New Funding Round
Today we’re pleased to announce that Rocketrip has raised $9 million in Series B financing. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with existing investors Canaan Partners and Genacast Ventures also participating. In addition to funding, Rocketrip will be getting a new advisor, as Bessemer partner Alex Ferrara joins our board of directors.
We started Rocketrip in 2013 to change the way employees and their employers think about spending. It was an ambitious goal based on a fairly simple intuition: that rewarding saving is a better way to reduce corporate expenses than punishing overspending. It’s been enormously gratifying to see that approach succeed for our clients. Now with a proven product-market fit and a great team in place, we’re looking forward to the road ahead.
You can read about the funding and our plans for the future in the press release below.
Rocketrip Raises $9M Series B Led By Bessemer Venture Partners
Leading travel incentive platform raises funding for marketing, sales, and R&D
NEW YORK – June 20, 2016 – Rocketrip, the leading platform for reducing corporate travel costs, announced that the company has raised $9 million in Series B financing led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Existing investors Canaan Partners and Genacast Ventures also participated in the round. Alex Ferrara, Bessemer’s New York-based partner, joins Rocketrip’s board of directors. Rocketrip will use the funding to expand marketing, sales, and research and development.
Rocketrip motivates business travelers to save money on trips by rewarding them with points that can be redeemed for gift cards, charitable contributions, travel benefits, and other rewards. For each itinerary, Rocketrip generates a personalized “Budget to Beat” based on real-time prices for flights, hotels, trains, and rental cars. When employees book under budget, they split the savings with their company.
In Q1 2016, Rocketrip’s clients saved an average of $301 per trip, or 27.6% against their trip budgets. Among Rocketrip users, average travel savings increased 5% from Q4 2015, and more than 28% since Q1 2015. Rocketrip was recently named “Top Employee Rewards Solution” in the Citi Smarter Worklife Challenge, a competition for digital human resources solutions.
“At this point, we have proven product-market fit, a scalable business model, strong industry partners, and support from outstanding investors. This funding round enables us to focus on continued exponential growth,” said Dan Ruch, founder and CEO of Rocketrip. “We welcome Alex Ferrara to the board and look forward to working with him on this exciting stage in Rocketrip’s development.”
Alex Ferrara is a partner in Bessemer’s New York office, where he focuses on investments in B2B cloud software, mobility, and financial services. “Misalignment of incentives in business travel results in massive unnecessary costs for enterprises, which spend $1.25 trillion per year on business travel. Rocketrip solves this problem by aligning employee and employer incentives, and the company’s impressive customer traction demonstrates that its system works,” said Ferrara. “Here you have this small, very talented and driven team based in NYC that has a bold vision to fix a big problem in the corporate travel market. They’ve established Rocketrip as the market leader in its space, and they’re having a lot of success.”
About Rocketrip
Rocketrip is the leading technology platform for reducing corporate travel expenses. By letting employees keep half of what they save on their business trips, Rocketrip motivates responsible spending. The platform’s algorithms integrate a company’s travel policy with real-time trip pricing and availability to create a personalized Budget to Beat for each trip. Employees book using their favorite travel websites or a travel management company, and Rocketrip provides employers with insights and analytics on company spending, savings and employee travel behavior.
Rocketrip is based in New York City and has received funding from Canaan Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Genacast Ventures, Crunchfund, Y Combinator, and angel investors.
