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From Startup to IPO Runway: The Navan Founder Playbook
How Ariel Cohen & Ilan Twig turned a booking pain into a travel-tech super-app, raised over a billion dollars, rebranded as Navan, and are now targeting a multi-billion-dollar IPO
Deal Lift
October 28, 2025
In partnership with
👋 Welcome to Deal Lift
Today’s story takes us deep into enterprise SaaS, not consumer snaps.
We’re looking at Navan, Inc. (formerly TripActions) — founded in 2015 by Ariel Cohen and Ilan Twig — which has grown from corporate travel logistics to full-stack expense, payment & travel management.
It’s a high-stakes story of pivoting, timing, scale, and going public. If you’re building a B2B tech brand or just want to understand how enterprise startups scale, this one’s for you.
1️⃣ The Trigger: Travel Tech Frustration
Back in 2015, Cohen and Twig had sold previous ventures. They were watching the corporate travel world and saw something obvious: booking trips, managing expenses, reconciling cards — all of it felt stuck in the past. Clunky UIs, siloed systems, slow expense reporting.
Their insight:
What if business travel & expenses were as seamless as consumer apps? One platform. One payment card. One dashboard.
Thus TripActions was born. Born out of operational pain and a clear market gap. This alignment of founder + pain + market is where big B2B plays start.
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2️⃣ Execution Timeline: Rapid Growth + Pivots
Let’s map their growth path — full of strategic shifts and funding leaps.
Year | Milestone | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
2015 | Founded as TripActions, seed funding ~US$2.12M | Seed funded the MVP to address travel pain-point |
2017 | Series A ~$14.6M, official launch | Walked out of stealth; large raise signified investor belief |
2018 | Series B ~$51M; Series C ~$154M; expansion to London & Amsterdam | Scaling internationally, heavy funding = rapid fire growth |
2020 | Pandemic hits → Travel halts → Launch “TripActions Liquid” expense/payment product | Pivot-or-die moment: they diversified into payments/expense |
2021 | Series E ~$155M; Series F ~$275M; valuation near US$7.25B | Massive valuation growth; category dominance emerging |
2023 | Rebranding to Navan; platform shifts to travel + expense + corporate card | Rebranding signals transition: travel tech → full-stack spend platform |
2025 | IPO filing planned, 36+ M shares, targeting US$6-8B valuation | Public markets move begins; big validation & pressure |
Sources note Navan confidentially filed for IPO and set sights on over US$8 billion valuation.
As of May–October 2025, filings suggest revenue ~US$329 million for first half, net loss ~US$100 million.
3️⃣ Why This Worked: Four Strategic Levers
Here’s the tactical breakdown you want.
a) Founder-Market Fit + Legacy Pain
Cohen & Twig weren’t amateurs. Previous exits. They understood enterprise pain. That domain expertise matters in B2B.
b) Timing + Pivot
When COVID hit, travel collapsed. Many companies died. TripActions pivoted — launching TripActions Liquid (expense + payments). They didn’t cling to travel only. They expanded. That move gave them a broader value chain: booking + spend + analytics.
c) Platform Architecture
Instead of doing “booking only,” they built a single platform that did: invoices, card programmability, virtual cards, expense automation, travel booking. That increases customer stickiness and TAM (total addressable market).
d) Scale + Funding Firepower
Multiple funding rounds gave them capital for global footprint. Offices in Europe. Large enterprise sales. Aggressive hiring. All the infrastructure enterprise SaaS demands.
4️⃣ Growth Mechanisms & GTM Play
Let’s dive into how Navan scaled — the GTM tactics you can steal.
Enterprise Direct Sales + Channel: Selling to large companies (Zoom, Lyft, Heineken) gives big ARR anchors.
Holistic Pricing Model: Instead of “booking fee only,” they monetize travel + cards + expenses → higher yield per customer.
Global Expansion: Offices in UK/Amsterdam. Travel is global. Stay local presence.
Rebrand + Narrative Shift: “TripActions” → “Navan” communicates “We’re not just travel.” We’re everything spend.
Invest in Executive Bench: They hired leadership (CFO from NYSE) to prep for public markets.
IPO Readiness Metrics: Focus on revenue growth + margin improvement. Needed to satisfy public market demands.
Principle | Actionable Insight |
|---|---|
Solve real operational pain | Travel + expenses are hated by users. Solve that, and enterprise will buy. |
Create platform lock-in early | Travel → card → expense → analytics. The value builds on itself. |
Pivot when needed | The pandemic forced travel collapse. They expanded instead of froze. |
Expand beyond your original niche | Travel alone is large but limited. Add spend + payments and you multiply TAM. |
Prep for scale before you need it | Leadership, global ops, funding, IFRS readiness. They built top of org early. |
Narrative shift is critical | Rebranding aligned product with vision. Name matters. |
Exit readiness shapes decisions | All the leadership hires, metric improvements, global scaling – they built for IPO. |
📌 Final Thoughts
Navan’s story isn’t a sexy consumer hustle. But it’s gold for SaaS operators and enterprise founders.
“You don’t always need the product everyone sees. You need the product EVERY enterprise quietly wants.”
They built from pain, executed relentlessly, scaled via platform + global expansion, and now read for public markets.
If you’re building in the B2B space — travel, spend, payments, ops — this blueprint matters.
📰 Deal-Lift Takeaway
Title: From Outdated Travel Software to a $7B Business: How Navan Built Its Platform
Use Case: Enterprise SaaS founders, operators, growth leads.
What to Steal Today: Focus on platform expansion, narrative shift, global footprint early, and preparing your team for scale.