Sojern, the travel tech company known for its traveler path-to-purchase data and innovative travel marketing and distribution solutions, today announced that growth equity firm TCV has led a $120 million financing round in Sojern.
Sojern looks to build on its years of rapid growth and successful execution—recently marking 13 consecutive quarters of profitability—to accelerate solutions development for its clients, which include 93 percent of the world’s Fortune 500 travel companies and thousands of independent hotel properties and local tourism providers. As part of the transaction, TCV general partner Woody Marshall joined Sojern’s Board of Directors. TCV brings extensive experience in the travel and marketing tech spaces with investments in Airbnb, Expedia, HomeAway, TripAdvisor, SiteMinder, ExactTarget, Act-On and Ariba.
Sojern offers a scalable model for driving bookings through a blend of programmatic display, video, social, mobile and native advertising tailored to reach travel audiences as they move through the process of planning and researching an upcoming trip. The company has closely followed trends in travel marketing, acquiring Facebook and Instagram Marketing Partner Adphorus in late 2017, testing into connected TV, and making its real-time audiences available to top clients via a programmatic in-house offering.
“At Sojern, we aim to know all the world’s travelers and move them from dream to destination. Our teams dig deep into the traveler path-to-purchase so we can help our clients win the competition for bookings. We’ve used those insights to drive $13 billion in bookings so far, with the goal of transforming digital marketing into digital distribution,” said Sojern CEO Mark Rabe. “With this new partnership with TCV, we’re excited to continue driving efficiency into the ~$100 billion being spent by travel brands around the world.”
Woody Marshall said, “We have been watching Sojern’s rapid rise in the travel technology space for several years, and we were impressed with Sojern’s leadership position in the space and its unique, scalable model for influencing travelers worldwide. Sojern’s ability to both conceptualize a better marketing experience for travel organizations and their steady execution over the past decade, as well as their innovative business strategy, strong executive team, and inspiring company culture made them a natural fit for us.”
