Troop, a meeting management platform, has raised $11 million in its latest fundraising round, which it intends to use to expand its staff and footprint, as well as to launch an end-to-end platform later this year.
TROOP’s technology platform assists businesses in planning, booking, estimating, and managing logistics for in-person meetings, addressing the increased demand for group meetings caused by the shift to a distributed team environment. Its clients range from start-ups to well-established global corporations.
Madrona Venture Group and Durable Capital Partners led the fundraising round. Madrona, led by co-founder Steve Singh, also led Troop’s previous $8 million fundraising round, and Singh is now Troop’s executive chairman. Durable also led a recent $75 million fundraising round for cloud-based booking platform Spotnana, of which Singh is also chairman and Madrona is a lead investor.
“TROOP’s expanding presence in South Africa comes at a crucial time, with the South African economy expected to make an upturn, and its meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE) industry likely to grow considerably over the coming year,” said TROOP co-founder Leonard Cremer.
“We look forward to establishing deeper roots in the country since we first established TROOP in South Africa in 2021, as well as making our offerings and services more accessible across the continent.”
Troop’s latest investment will go toward expanding its international footprint—the company is currently present in the United States, Spain, South Africa, and the United Kingdom—as well as continuing “rapid expansion across Europe and the United States,” according to Troop, as well as expanding its customer and sales teams. Troop’s staff has grown from six to forty in the last 15 months, and it plans to more than double this year.
“As companies become increasingly hybrid or even fully remote, creating meaningful in-person interactions becomes more challenging than ever,” said Henry Ellenbogen, managing partner and chief investment officer at Durable Capital Partners LP, which led the Series B funding round.
“A portion of this investment will be allocated towards the continued growth of TROOP’s technology, customer success, and sales teams to support the broadening international footprint and rapid expansion across South African, Europe, and the US, and to deliver and launch TROOP: One, the company’s end-to-end meeting management platform due to launch later this year,” said Steve Singh, executive chairperson of TROOP and managing director at Madrona.
“TROOP has transformed what has historically been a largely manual and time-intensive process into a self-serve platform that optimizes meeting planning based on corporate goals including travel time, locations, flights, lodging, cost, CO2 reductions, and others,” said Singh.
