Concur Co-Founder Is Back With Biz Travel Startup Spotnana

A new startup is attempting to strip traditional technology vendors of their clout in corporate travel. In a surprise, the New York-based company Spotnana revealed on Thursday that business travel luminary Steve Singh is its executive chairman. The New York-based startup officially launched by closing a $34 million Series A funding round, led by venture firms ICONIQ and Madrona Venture Group. Singh's involvement in Spotnana will catch notice. He successfully sold travel-and-expense specialist Concur to SAP for $7.4 billion in 2014. He also has evaluated hundreds of startups as a managing director at Madrona. This Seattle-based venture-capital firm was an early investor in Amazon, and it maintains close links with the e-commerce titan. "While I'm not the CEO of Spotnana, I spend an inordinate amount of my time on it because I love the platform," Singh said. Officially, Spotnana came out of stealth on Thursday, led by CEO and co-founder Sarosh Waghmar. But Skift had named and clocked its behind-the-scenes development earlier this year. Spotnana does two things. One is that it acts as a travel management company, offering unbundled services to corporations. "We have a consumption-based commercial model," Waghmar said. "There are no upfront fees or minimums you must pay. This model differs from the way the industry has typically worked, which has been pay-to-play." Separately, the startup provides automation tools on a white-label basis to travel management companies. The companies can replace many point solutions, or single-function tools, with the startup's platform. "I don't think you can beat the incumbents by building incrementally on their technology or copying their business model," Singh said. "Instead, we've built something from the ground up that solves business tr