00:00So there's a lot to talk about when it comes to travel, but I do want to talk a little bit about the decision to go public.
00:06It feels like we're still coming out of a period where you really saw a dearth of IPOs.
00:12That has started to change a little bit. I know that the shutdown is maybe gumming up the mechanics there.
00:16But talk us through the decision. Why now to enter the public markets?
00:21Sure. I'm a big believer in the public capital markets, as you mentioned.
00:24There are lots of benefits to being public, you know, access to a lower cost of capital.
00:30Branding event, maturation of the company, as well as an acquisition currency.
00:35And Yvonne is really poised to benefit from all of them, which will help us grow and help our customers as we look to disrupt the space.
00:43Well, let's get to the idea, though, too. I mean, we were just talking about Airbnb, which is primarily, predominantly leisure travel.
00:49And there's some concerns that we might be seeing some cracks in there when it comes to business travel.
00:53Are you seeing any material pullback at all?
00:56Well, it was funny. I was flying yesterday to Boston.
01:00I actually had a mechanical error on my problem on my first flight was on the second flight.
01:06And I was talking to the flight attendant, Bernard, Bernardo.
01:09And I said, are you seeing a slowdown in business travelers?
01:13And he said, not at all. He's like, road warriors are road warriors.
01:18And they're very different than consumer travel.
01:21And it was really interesting because our business travel index showed that September to September, BTI was up 20 percent year over year.
01:30And TSA data, which is what we measure it against, was only up 0.6 percent.
01:35So, you know, we believe that there is a big difference between that business travel and that consumer travel.
01:41But you also know, I mean, when when time when economic times get hard, everyone pulls back, not just consumers.
01:46Companies start to, you know, scrutinize your your receipts a little bit more than they should maybe.
01:50But but it gets to this idea that if we're not going to see a retrenchment in business travel, is there a sense here that the leisure travel, the loss, potential loss of leisure travel will actually hurt the industry?
02:01Or is there enough, I guess, in the business pipeline to make up for that?
02:05So Navan is focused on the frequent traveler and focused on the business traveler.
02:10And we're not seeing we're not seeing those trends as evidenced by the BTI.
02:14But I love hearing you talk about CFOs being more concerned about cost because I get to talk to CFOs about doing three things.
02:24One, saving money. We save companies about 15 percent when they move to this more modern travel versus legacy.
02:30Saving time. It takes only about seven minutes to book a trip versus 45 for the legacy players.
02:36And we get to make people happy because you don't have all those receipts and we have a very high CSAT of about 96.
02:42So I think it all plays together.
02:44We believe that one-on-one and group connections are here to stay and that's evidenced by the BTI data.
02:52I do want to go back to the public versus private markets because this is something that I think about a lot.
02:57And given your experience in the space, your experience taking companies public, one of the narratives that is out there is that you are seeing a structural shift in the way that companies access funding.
03:08That you can stay private for much longer, in some cases never go public.
03:13And I wonder if you agree with that assessment that there is something structural going on or is this cyclical and we're going to see the limits of how much you can really stay in the private markets.
03:22I agree with you. There is a structural shift. The amount of private capital today versus 20 years ago is materially higher and companies can access it.
03:32On the other hand, is that ultimately good for the markets?
03:36I think it's good when you have more choices as an investor.
03:40Is it ultimately good for these companies?
03:42Maturation is one of the key items that's really important.
03:46And I think you've seen some companies in the past.
03:49Uber might be a great example of if you don't mature at that normal state that you would have as a public company,
03:56that's going to create problems later on, not just for you, not just for investors, but also for customers.
04:01Do you think we're going to see a material pickup, though, in new issues?
04:03I mean, given, I mean, you know, when you're at the NYC, I mean, I don't know how many more publicly traded stocks there were than we are today,
04:09but it's gone down significantly.
04:10Significantly gone down.
04:12Look, you're talking to someone who this Navon survived COVID.
04:16We got public in a government shutdown.
04:18We've got a lot of grit.
04:20We always find a way for ourselves and our customers.
04:23I believe it's a good thing to see more companies come to the market.
04:27And there's a big pipeline behind us.
04:30And I think the banks would be better positioned to tell you all those numbers.
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