If you’ve ever tried to book a venue for a company event, you’ll know how onerous a task it can be. You have to contact multiple vendors, wait for quotes, evaluate them, see if you can get a good deal, and then get all that approved. So it makes sense that depending on the size of the group, companies may take the shortcut to Airbnb or Booking.com, or work with an agency.
French startup Naboo is trying to bring more visibility into this fragmented market with an Airbnb-esque marketplace for corporate retreats that, in addition to accommodation, bundles in other services like catering, activities and transport.
The company also offers a SaaS component that serves as a platform for all MICE events (short for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions, these are large-scale gatherings of people). The platform essentially lets its big corporate clients define their procurement policies, create approbation workflows, manage invoices and payments, and more.
Having an all-in-one marketplace likely helps the company sell its platform to big corporate clients. Publicly traded companies are constantly looking for platforms that centralize all spendings around a specific category so they can set budgets and see if they’re overspending.
The strategy seems to be working: Naboo says its booking volumes quadrupled to €60 million in 2024 from €15 million a year earlier. Now, this is a marketplace, so most of that booking value is being captured by its accommodation and catering partners, but the company told TechCrunch it has …