BizAway is thrilled to announce a €35 million investment from Mayfair Equity Partners ("Mayfair"), an investor specialized in the consumer and technology sectors with over £2 billion in assets under management.

BizAway will partner with the Mayfair team to accelerate growth in existing markets and expand into new ones. Mayfair's investment will also enable BizAway's team to design and implement new AI and data strategies, develop additional products and services to address the challenges and frustrations faced by business travelers, and explore future mergers and acquisitions.

"Corporate travel can be a deeply frustrating experience. Legacy systems, processes and behaviours all contribute to exasperation for travellers and the companies they work for. Our proprietary software platform was created with our customers in mind, allowing them to quickly plan and book trips while significantly controlling and reducing costs," said Luca Carlucci, CEO of BizAway "Our success is a result of our teams' dedication, drive and capability in bringing the best B2B travel management provider to market, and I'm humbled by our incredible growth over the past decade. We still have ambitious plans and are excited to partner with Mayfair, a team with an impressive track record of rapidly scaling businesses, to transform the corporate travel experience."

"Anyone who has travelled for work understands the appeal of making business trips easier, quicker, and more reliable. Luca, Flavio, and their team recognised this need and developed an intuitive software platform and paired it with exceptional customer service, which has built a loyal base of repeat customers," said Yusuf Hoballah, Partner at Mayfair Equity Partners. "While consumer travel has seen significant innovation to enhance the customer experience, corporate travel still lags behind and we're excited to partner with BizAway in their mission to transform this trillion-dollar industry".

Mayfair was advised on the transaction by Clearwater (corporate finance), while BizAway's shareholders were advised by Lazard (corporate finance). Among existing investors, Azimut Digitech Fund, advised by FNDX, reinvested alongside Mayfair, and together with MundiVentures, Gellify Digital Investment, and Exor Seeds, reaffirmed their support as strong backers of BizAway's potential.

The story of BizAway

Founded by Luca Carlucci and Flavio Del Bianco, BizAway combines a proprietary and intuitive software platform for travel management with a 24/7 multilingual in-house customer service team.

Since 2015, BizAway has undergone an impressive evolution, growing from a two-person startup to an established company with over 300 employees and 8 offices worldwide (Italy, Spain, Albania, and UAE).

In 2020, BizAway expanded its international presence by opening an office in Vigo, followed by the opening of a new office in Shkodra, Albania, in 2021. The expansion continued in 2023 with the opening of offices in Dubai (in partnership with Seed Group) and in Tirana. This global network expansion has supported the company's exponential growth, now serving over 1,750 clients and doubling its annual revenue year over year for the past three years.

Key milestones in its evolution include:

• On the investment front, in 2020 BizAway secured two funding rounds, one of €2 million and another of €2.5 million from MundiVentures, followed by a €10 million Series A round in 2022, led by Gellify, Azimut Digitech Fund, and EXOR Seeds, with participation from MundiVentures.
• In 2022, it became the first Business TMC globally to achieve B Corp certification, recognizing its commitment to high standards of social and environmental performance and responsibility.
• In 2023, it acquired the business travel division of Next Generation Travel and secured a €10 million funding from illimity.

A reliable and comprehensive platform for business travelers

BizAway has grown over time thanks to continuous research and development efforts, constantly improving its business travel management system to offer a complete experience, ensuring high levels of efficiency and customer satisfaction.

BizAway integrates travel risk management systems into its platform to ensure that all employees traveling are always safe, offers carbon offset options to mitigate the environmental impact of business trips, as well as features for automatic application of corporate travel policies, and gives employees the option to use the platform for booking their leisure travel as well.

Additionally, numerous integrations in the rail sector have been made, promoting sustainable transport and simplifying itinerary management across Europe, thanks to partnerships with operators such as Renfe, SNCF, SNCB, SBB, and Deutsche Bahn. BizAway is the first TMC to integrate Iryo services directly into its platform.

In recent years, two important features have been added, BizzyPay and BizzyFlex:

BizzyFlex allows business travelers to cancel any booking by paying a 10% fee, up to three hours before departure or check-in, without the need to provide any explanations, and receive a refund of up to 80% of the canceled trip's cost.

BizzyPay, the complete corporate card solution, is designed to revolutionize how companies manage their expenses, offering a wide range of features aimed at providing flexibility, security, and total control over financial transactions, both during and outside of travel.

Now, with this new round of funding, new technological innovations will be introduced, further solidifying BizAway as the most reliable and comprehensive platform for business travelers.

"Thanks to the investment received, we look to the future with great optimism. This support will allow us to accelerate innovation and expand our offerings, further strengthening our commitment to revolutionizing the business travel sector. We are excited about the opportunities ahead and confident that we will reach even more ambitious goals," concludes Luca Carlucci.