Navan falls 20% in market debut as IPO momentum sputters
The AI-driven travel platform struggles to convince investors, dropping below a $6 billion valuation.
Navan shares tumbled 20 percent in their first day of trading on Thursday, a sharp setback for the business-travel technology company.
The company, which priced its initial public offering at $25 per share, the midpoint of its marketed range, opened at $22 and fell steadily throughout the session, leaving it valued below $6 billion on a fully diluted basis. Navan was valued at $9.2 billion in a 2022 funding round.
Navan, which describes itself as an “AI-first” company offering an all-in-one platform for corporate travel and expense management, had hoped its emphasis on automation and analytics would help it stand out in a crowded field. CEO Ariel Cohen said the company’s technology can help clients cut as much as 15 percent from their travel budgets.
“We’re not just a company that talks about using AI, we actually demonstrate our use of AI in our numbers,” Chief Financial Officer Amy Butte told Reuters.
Navan and some of its existing investors sold 36.9 million shares in the offering. The company’s prominent backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Zeev Ventures, founded by Israeli investor Oren Zeev, who held shares worth roughly $1 billion after the IPO, and Greenoaks.
Navan’s platform is used by clients such as Primark, Shopify, Zoom, Wayfair and Thomson Reuters.
