Emburse expands portfolio with acquisitions of Roadmap and DVI

Emburse, a provider of expense management and accounts payable automation solutions, is adding two more companies to its portfolio.

Emburse is acquiring Dutch startup Roadmap, a mobile business travel technology developer, and Virginia-based DVI (Data Visualization Intelligence), a travel data specialist, in separate deals for which terms have not been disclosed.

“We are confident that business travel will see a significant return, post-COVID. We realized early on when COVID hit that when travel restarted, it would take a very different shape to before, and this was reinforced through discussions with our customers,” says Eric Friedrichsen, CEO of Emburse.

“There will be a greater emphasis on travel data and insights, on employee traveler experience, and areas such as duty of care, the employee experience, sustainability, and demonstrating the value of travel. The acquisitions of Roadmap and DVI will help us to deliver these capabilities even more effectively.”

In July 2019, a few months after the merger of Certify and Chrome River, the new company acquired Emburse.

Then in January 2020, the combined companies rebranded under the name of Emburse – encompassing Certify and Chrome River along with the products and services of Abacus, Captio, Nexonia and Tallie and now adding Roadmap and DVI, including all employees from both companies.

Emburse says it has 16,000 corporate customers, with nine million users in more than 120 countries.

Emburse says Roadmap’s simple user interface will enable its corporate clients to give their employees an “intuitive experience” that ensures travel spend stays within corporate policy. Throughout a trip, users receive employer-branded flight updates, destination tips and safety reminders via an app.

“Bringing Roadmap into our suite of solutions allows our customers to offer their employees a modern, consumer-like travel experience that empowers employees and is reflective of their policies and values,” Friedrichsen says.

Roadmap was founded in 2015 and raised $4.6 million in Series A funding in 2018.

With DVI’s technology, Emburse says its clients can analyze any type of travel spend, booked through any channel, and can monitor destinations regarding COVID data.

“We’re thrilled to build upon our platform capabilities with the addition of DVI. This enables us to provide customers with even more sophisticated data analysis, which continues to grow in importance for business travelers and the finance teams that support them,” Friedrichsen says.

“As organizations around the world return to increased business travel, employee safety and cost control will remain a critical issue. Granular visibility into spend patterns, identifying pockets of wasteful or inefficient spend, and minimizing out-of-policy transactions, will be essential for organizations to successfully emerge from the economic downturn.”

DVI was founded in 2017.

Emburse says it will continue to support the customers of DVI and Roadmap with their existing, standalone solutions, while at the same time incorporating their technology into the Emburse platform.