TravelPerk has acquired U.K.-based travel management company Click Travel, the company announced, its second major acquisition this year following its January purchase of U.S.-headquartered NexTravel. The deal is TravelPerk's first since closing a $160 million funding round in April
The acquisition brings under the TravelPerk umbrella more than £300 million in annual business travel spend across more than 2,000 Click Travel clients—mainly small and midsize businesses, including Five Guys and Red Bull, according to TravelPerk. All 150 of Click's Birmingham-based staff will join TravelPerk, the companies said.
In the near term, Click's business and platform will continue to operate independently under TravelPerk's ownership before Click clients eventually are migrated to TravelPerk, according to TravelPerk chief commercial officer Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo.
"We are not in any hurry and expect the process to be slow and gradual," Taunay-Bucalo said of the planned integration roadmap.
Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed, but TravelPerk described it as "largest" of the three acquisitions it has made to date, which includes the July 2020 purchase of travel risk management startup Albatross as well as this year's NexTravel deal.
In the months since closing its $160 million Series D funding round, TravelPerk has made no secret of its plans to deploy that war chest of investment on acquisitions in a bid to gain significant market share in preparation for the return of corporate travel after the Covid-19 pandemic.
But TravelPerk's competitors in the tech-forward travel management vertical have been making some big buys, and raking in big bucks, as well. Most notably, TripActions in May acquired U.K. TMC Reed & Mackay three months after closing a $155 million Series E round.
Legacy TMCs have been active buyers as well, including American Express Global Business Travel, which agreed in May to purchase Egencia in a megadeal uniting two of the top five biggest global travel management providers.