Last year, I wrote that Navan‘s IPO wasn’t just another public offering. It was a referendum.
Not simply on one company, but on whether Wall Street (and Private Equity) was finally prepared to value a travel company as a technology company. At the time, opinions were divided. Some viewed Navan as an innovative software platform with tremendous upside. Others saw it as simply another travel management company dressed up in modern technology.
The stock’s performance over the months following the IPO did little to settle the debate. Like many newly public companies, enthusiasm gave way to skepticism, and the shares traded well below their offering price. But something has changed.
American Express Global Business Travel is going private at a tech-like valuation. And now Navan’s stock has climbed above its IPO price. Navan closed at $27.25 on July 7, 2026 vs. IPO share price of $25.00 on October 30, 2025. Note: It had reached a low of $8.12 as recently as March 2026.
By itself, that isn’t the story. The story is what it represents. It suggests that investors are beginning to believe that certain travel companies deserve to be evaluated through a different lens — not as traditional travel businesses, but as enterprise software, AI and fintech platforms that happen to operate in travel.
For decades, travel companies have largely been valued on familiar metrics: transaction volume, supplier relationships, margins, and exposure to economic cycles. It has often been a business of scale and execution, but rarely one that commanded premium technology valuations.
Technology companies play by different rules. Investors reward recurring revenue, workflow ownership, automation, data assets, embedded payments, artificial intelligence, and the ability to become indispensable enterprise platforms. Increasingly, those are exactly the characteristics being built into the next generation of travel companies.
A Different Way to Look at the Industry
Viewed through this lens, several recent events begin to look very different.
When Long Lake, backed by technology-focused investors, agreed to acquire American Express Global Business Travel, many saw it as another large private equity transaction. I think it was something else.
It was an early bet that one of the industry’s largest travel platforms can create substantially more value by embracing AI, automation and software-driven operating models than the public markets had been willing to recognize. Navan’s recent performance certainly begins to make that investment look much more rational. The public markets and private equity may be arriving at the same conclusion from different directions: this generation of travel technology deserves to be valued differently.
Why This Matters
Valuation isn’t just an academic exercise. It determines who can raise capital, who can acquire competitors, who attracts the best talent, who can invest aggressively in innovation… and who ultimately shapes the future of an industry.
If investors begin assigning technology multiples to travel technology platforms instead of traditional travel multiples, the implications extend far beyond one company’s stock chart.
Founders will build different businesses. Boards will pursue different strategies. Private equity firms will view opportunities differently. Strategic buyers will reassess what they’re willing to pay. And mergers and acquisitions across our industry could look very different over the next decade.
The Real Question
So perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question. Instead of asking who deserves a technology valuation… we should be asking whether AmEx GBT and Navan are simply the first in line.
Which company will be next to convince investors that it is fundamentally a technology platform, not just a travel company?
Who is building enterprise software rather than simply selling travel?
Who owns workflows instead of transactions?
Who is using AI to fundamentally change operating economics rather than simply adding another chatbot?
Those are the companies I believe investors will increasingly reward. Because if Wall Street has begun to change the way it values travel technology, we’re witnessing more than an improvement in one stock price. We’re watching the beginning of a new valuation framework for an entire industry. And that leads to what I believe is the most important strategic question in the travel industry today:
If Navan and AmEx GBT are first… who’s next?
