Corporate travel management platform TravelPerk has rebranded to Perk in a move to “unite travel and spend in one intelligent AI-native platform.”
Perk said the rebrand is intended to move the company closer to eliminating “shadow work,” which it defines as “the invisible, non-core work employees do outside of their main job.” This includes tasks such as booking trips, filing expenses, coding invoices and overseeing approvals.
In research Perk commissioned from Forrester Consulting, data showed that these tasks cost businesses approximately $1.7 billion annually. The survey included responses from over 700 “decision-makers” in finance, HR and IT and 8,000 employees across 20 industries and six economies: the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.
“More than a decade ago, we started by removing the friction from traveling for work,” said Avi Meir, Perk CEO and co-founder.
“Over time, we realized those small, frustrating tasks people do outside of their core job weren’t just hiding in travel, they were everywhere. To truly solve the problem, we first had to grasp its scale, and the numbers from the research surprised even me. How can a 1,000-person company afford to lose around 7,000 hours to shadow work every week? Perk gives companies the fuel they need to make work simpler and give people their time back.”
The company said its mission to eliminate shadow work is bolstered by its spend management capability, an AI-native module that automates these tasks. Additionally, companies can utilize “Perk Pay” and give employees physical cards to use, helping to centralize oversight of spend, Perk said.
Barcelona-based Perk said it is also focusing on global expansion as part of the rebrand and establishing dual headquarters in London and Boston.
In January, it acquired Swiss expense management technology company Yokoy for an undisclosed amount and also announced its Series E financing, which totaled $200 million.
Last January, Perk announced its Series D-1 extension round of $104 million in January. In June, it acquired Chicago-based AmTrav to strengthen its position in the U.S.