Amplifying Company Retreats With Year-Round Culture Building

A UK-based startup has secured funding and two leading advisors to help its mission evolve how companies bring their teams together.

WorkTripp has taken on Q Hamirani, who, up until a couple of weeks ago ,was head of Airbnb’s Live & Work Anywhere program. It has hired Dora Nagy, a coaching expert who has held senior roles at Google and Softbank, as an advisor, too.

The company also raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding from SFC Capital at the end of March.

Now it wants to help businesses “mature” offsite meetings.

“Before, offsites were a bit more of a vanity thing, like a big showcase, whereas now it’s actually becoming part of the fabric of how we work,” said Sophie Bailey, WorkTripp CEO and co-founder.

Designing for Trust

Immediately after pandemic travel restrictions were lifted, company retreats served a purpose as many employees had never met, or at least met up in person in a long time. So they played crucial role in building company culture, especially when teams are working remotely.

But remote work practices continue to be a hot topic, with debate around the return to offices.

“Some elements of the new world of work are very short-termist, task-focused, and hyper-efficient,” said Bailey. “You’re always on, all the time, and so we need to create space for that longer-term thinking.”

“The reason why we work with Q as an advisor is he has experience in working out how large companies are evolving around new flexible ways of working,” Bailey said.

WorkTripp wants to help companies plan offsites, which are critical for teams to keep connections, but keep momentum going throughout the year. Initiatives include podcasts, accountability sessions, coaching, and even surveys that derive insights into team gaps.

“You have an offsite and a theme, then in between, we have low-friction ways of keeping that momentum going, so it’s not just considered a one-off thing,” she said.

The concept also alleviates pressures around sustainability.

Bailey thinks there’s a market for this because many companies are slimming down on offices, so there’s cash to spare.

Rather than companies investing in things like employee monitoring technology, she argues they should spend money on “designing for trust.”

“We are going to need to be very thoughtful and intentional as we plan offsites in a remote world to ensure we are being productive, promoting learning and enhancing belonging connections. WorkTripp is going to help solve all of them,” said Nagy.

Sally Page has joined as a co-founder from Blinkist, while Andy Gaies, former chief content officer at Audible, is an angel investor.

With the new team and money in place, Bailey says she’s ready to get out in front of customers.

Sidenotes

Cambon Partners, a mergers and acquisitions advisor, is helping Outsite with its latest fundraising efforts.

Outsite, which is a membership-based hospitality company that focuses on remote workers, had just raised $1 million through crowdfunding. This was a strategic move to build its membership, with stakeholders more inclined to book its properties.

The strategy looks like it paid off, because CEO Emmanuel Guisset said it was looking to raise $10 million to $15 million “for the operating company and brand” and between $100 million and $200 million to buy properties in its strong markets of southern Europe and Latin America.

“We basically want to scale what we are already doing with our real estate partners such as Extendam and Keys-AM,” he said.

“I believe in the convergence of real estate and travel technology,” added Morgann Lesne, a partner at Cambon. “Nearly all the files I’m working on, there’s software, or a mix of OpCo/PropCo.”

An OpCo/PropCo (or operating company/property company) structure allows financing and credit rating-related issues for both companies to remain separate.

The Outsite work is on top of the dealmaker’s recent appointment by Middle Eastern agency Musafir to raise cash to buy smaller rivals.

The advisory also played a role in the sale of Spain-based Travel Compositor to Travelsoft.

10-Second Corporate Travel Catch-Up

Who and what Skift has covered over the past week: Airbnb, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Extended Stay America, Hopper, Hyatt, Marriott, rail travel, United Airlines, Wizz Air.

In Brief

New York Stock Exchange Issues Notice to WeWork

Flexible space provider WeWork  has received a notice from the New York Stock Exchange, notifying it that it does not comply with the exchange’s continued listing standards. That’s because as of April 11, 2023, the average closing price of the company’s Class A common stock was less than $1 per share over a consecutive 30 trading-day period. “The notice does not result in the immediate delisting of the company’s common stock from the New York Stock Exchange,” WeWork said in a statement on April 18. “The company intends to respond to the New York Stock Exchange within 10 business days of receipt of the Notice affirming its intent to cure the deficiency. Pursuant to the New York Stock Exchange’s rules, the company has a six-month period following receipt of the notice to regain compliance with the New York Stock Exchange’s minimum share price requirement.”

GlobalStar Teams Up With TripBam

GlobalStar Travel Management has signed an agreement with TripBam to offer its agencies hotel and air re-shopping. This automated service lets users monitor existing air and hotel reservations to see if prices change between the time of booking and before travel. If a lower fare or rate is found, it gets automatically rebooked “This arrangement benefits GlobalStar partners, customers, and travelers by reducing costs without disrupting travelers — something that’s critical as airfares and rates continue to climb,” said Peter Grover, TripBam managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa

CWT Steps Up Carbon Checking

Corporate travel agency CWT has launched a new meetings and events carbon footprint calculator that accounts for meeting space as well as food and beverage carbon consumption, on top of travel and hotel stays. The carbon calculator analyzes and reports on individual and collective delegate carbon emission and waste data for the entire event lifecycle and can map emission data against each customer’s own carbon benchmarks for current and future events. Thrust Carbon supports the software.