He once rejected a buyout offer from Airbnb. Now, he aims to improve travel expense claims

Travelstop CEO Prashant Kirtane / Photo credit: Travelstop

Prashant Kirtane made headlines three years ago when he sold his stake in his startup TravelMob to HomeAway, a vacation-rentals portal and a subsidiary of Expedia. The sale went for an undisclosed sum, and was a strategic move by Expedia to take on its business nemesis Airbnb. HomeAway first bought a 63 percent stake into TravelMob in 2013.

Officially launched in July 2012, TravelMob quickly led the vacation-rentals market in Asia, Kirtane tells Tech in Asia. But here’s a fact many do not know: Barely a year into TravelMob’s launch, Airbnb courted Kirtane with an acquisition offer in a bid to break into the region.

Kirtane decided that it was too early. Instead, he continued building up TravelMob’s platform and waited for better terms to come along. The opportunity came in the form of HomeAway’s investment. “I’m not allowed to mention the actual figure but it was one of the biggest exits in Singapore,” he says.

Today, Kirtane is once again throwing his hat into the ring with his new venture, Travelstop.

Anyone who has gone on a business trip can attest to the difficulty of claiming travel expenses from management. Nobody has the will to collect all receipts, glue them onto a sheet of paper, and send that compilation to finance for approval. Then comes the 30-day wait for claims to be reimbursed to the employee.

The mind-numbing process induces collective sighs and eyerolls from busy executives who have more important things to do. Kirtane is betting that there’s demand for a seamless way to manage travel expenses.

The software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup announced on August 27 that it had secured US$1.2 million in seed funding from Singapore-based venture capital firm SeedPlus, along with an anonymous travel-focused venture capital firm based in the US. On top of the seed funding, Travelstop also announced its launch in Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia.

Travelstop aims to give more established players in the expense management market in Asia a run for their money. It aims to do this through an affordable fee structure charged only to active users, and an easy-to-use interface that’s quickly accessed via near immediate signups.

Prior to Travelstop and TravelMob, Kirtane spent 20 years in senior management positions at Yahoo and Expedia. As a frequent business traveler, the Singapore permanent resident was often frustrated with the cumbersome task of safekeeping paper receipts and submitting them for expense reports.

Travelstop’s dream co-founding team are familiar faces to Kirtane. Both chief technology officer Vijay Aggarwal and chief product officer Altaf Dhamani worked for years at Yahoo, TravelMob, and HomeAway.

No-frills offerings

Unlike more established players Traveldoo and Concur, which take up to 90 days to onboard and integrate, Travelstop’s features can be accessed almost immediately, according to Kirtane. All employees need is a username and password.

Budget-friendly expense management