Brex Travel Solution Enhances Offerings with New Group Management Feature

Meeting planning platform Troop is broadening its scope to handle additional functions including booking, the company announced.

The wider platform, Troop One, can serve as an “all-in-one, end-to-end meetings planning solution,” CEO and co-founder Dennis Vilovic said. “We’re helping the planner to manage the whole process in one platform … and giving the information to the companies to understand their impact in terms of cost and their commitment to their CO2 impact.”

Troop’s original key function, helping planners determine the best locations for their events, now has an AI-powered destination search that can scan data to make that determination, according to the company. Such data points include cost estimates, travel time for attendees and projected carbon emissions. Troop One also is building a network of event planners, suppliers and others with local expertise that can help with planning and executing events.

“It’s hand-picked planners which we are managing from our end and working with existing networks, connecting them to the platform,” Vilovic said.

For booking, Troop One is directly integrating with Spotnana—which, investment-wise, is linked to Troop via Steve Singh’s Madrona Venture Group—to enable attendees to book within policy on the platform. That integration has been underway for a while, and Vilovic said there will be more integrations in the future with other booking tools.

Troop One also features an attendee dashboard where planners can monitor such logistics as invitations, itineraries and information such as whether attendees have applied for necessary visas, Vilovic said. In addition, the platform provides advanced cost estimations during the planning phase for budgeting and enables planners to issue virtual cards to attendees and track expenses, the company said.

Troop One is planning for future integrations as well and has introduced a new API toolkit for developers who wish to integrate with the platform, Vilovic said.

Troop was named as the winner at the BTN Group’s Innovate conference last year, with the judging panel noting that a key need was “further integration with the rest of the planning cycle.”

Michael B. Baker www.businesstravelnews.com