Navan, a platform that promises to simplify the business of corporate travel and expenses, is still dallying towards its long-slated IPO, with the company’s CEO forecasting that the business will reach profitability this year and is “not far” from going public.
Counting Heineken, Shopify, Zoom, and Pinterest among its customers, Navan’s made a splash in the working world, as a growing list of organizations use the online booking platform to lighten the logistical hassle of organizing hotels, flights, corporate cards, and other expenses for their employees.
The company started life in 2015 as TripActions, but changed its name to a portmanteau of “navigate” and “avant” (apparently as in "avant-garde") in 2023, and whispers of a potential IPO have abounded for years. After seeing its valuation soar above $1B in 2018 and growing further since, the company has reportedly considered going public in 2023, 2024, and 2025 — despite Covid’s impact on the travel industry — cutting its workforce and building its leadership team ahead of the rumored offering.
System overload
Navan could be viewed as another ripple in the ever-growing wave of software services that companies use to outsource some of their more time-sapping internal processes. There’s all-in-one platforms like Oracle and Workday, which is used — and seemingly semi-despised — by more than 50% of Fortune 500 companies; payroll and HR management tools like Gusto; Workable and Greenhouse which are for applicant tracking; Checkr which runs background checks; and a meme-sparking array of others that do almost everything else.
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GM has reportedly rehired more than 100 former Cruise employees, 18 months after shuttering the robotaxi unit
GM has rehired more than 100 employees it let go early last year when it shuttered Cruise, its former robotaxi business, according to reporting by The Information.
The hiring spree, which also includes employees from Nvidia and Uber, is geared toward ramping up GM’s plans for personal-use self-driving vehicles and not robotaxis. The former had been the focus of Cruise, prior to GM shuttering it in 2024.
Reporting last fall revealed that GM was attempting to rehire some former Cruise employees, but the scope of that effort wasn’t clear. More than 1,000 employees were laid off when the automaker scrapped Cruise, which it invested $10 billion into.
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Reporting last fall revealed that GM was attempting to rehire some former Cruise employees, but the scope of that effort wasn’t clear. More than 1,000 employees were laid off when the automaker scrapped Cruise, which it invested $10 billion into.
Google’s Waymo, Cruise’s former chief rival, is now worth $126 billion after a $16 billion funding round earlier this year. The company says it’s serving 500,000 paid robotaxi rides per week in the US.
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