TravelPerk buys UK largest corporate travel platform Click Travel, and goes one step further to become a unicorn - TravelPerk has signed its third acquisition in a year and is steadily continuing its conversion to unicorn. The Spanish startup has announced the purchase of Click Travel, the UK's largest travel platform.

Although the price of the operation has not transcended, the company founded by Avi Meir has claimed that this is its largest acquisition so far.

TravelPerk acquired the American company NextTravel last January in an agreement that Dealroom valued at about 10 million euros, and integrated the startup Albatross in July 2020 to offer updated information on covid restrictions.

A Boston-based investment group, The Baupost Group, has provided TravelPerk with capital for financial's acquisition, the company details. Last April, the startup based in Barcelona also obtained a funding round of 160 million dollars, 135 million euros, to expand in the United States and Europe.

TravelPerk has clarified that the 150 employees of Click Travel will join its team, "making Birmingham a new hub for the company and thus reinforcing its dominant position in the UK market".

TravelPerk buys UK largest corporate travel platform Click Travel

The British company handles 300 million pounds in business travel for corporate clients such as Five Guys or Red Bull, according to the statement issued by TravelPerk.

TravelPerk is leading a rise within the ecosystem of Spanish startups that few could predict in times of coronavirus.

TravelPerk buys UK largest corporate travel platform Click Travel: The platform increased its client portfolio by 60% in the midst of the pandemic, and now they say that this is the last step to expand their offer and change an industry of 1.3 trillion dollars.

"We are now not only the dominant player in the UK, we are also the leading travel management platform for SMEs globally and the only travel platform that maintains a focus on technology solutions that will last over time," says TravelPerk CEO Avi Meir.

TravelPerk buys UK largest corporate travel platform Click Travel

The company's leader has no doubt that the business travel market is on track to a full recovery, saying "we are already seeing a lot of hopeful signs in our key markets."

TravelPerk has raised 248 million euros in funding since its inception in 2015 and has managed to seal collaboration agreements with major tourism players such as SkyScanner in recent months.

It doesn't fly yet, but TravelPerk continues to secure a candidacy for Spanish unicorn to which it already aimed last year.

TravelPerk buys UK largest corporate travel platform Click Travel

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Some 200,000 self-employed workers will have to return a Social Security contribution due to the lack of communication between the Treasury and the mutual societies

About 200,000 self-employed people are in debt to Social Security. The lack of fluidity of communication between the Treasury and the mutual societies has caused them to be doubly exonerated. Therefore, they will have to return a fee.

The information is provided on the web autónomosyemprendedores.es and the explanation is the following: all the self-employed who paid the cessation of activity until May were exempted, by default, from the payment of the fee in the current month of June 2021, without differentiating those who were going to reapply for aid, from those who did not plan to do so.

But there are about 200,000 who have been granted such aid. Initially (in this generalized exemption), they were charged only 10 per cent of the quota, with the remaining 90 per cent falling within the exemption. But, when they were granted the aid again, the mutual societies have returned an entire quota, so, currently, they have a balance owed to the Social Security of 250 euros (if they contribute for the minimum), which corresponds to 90% of the quota.

In statements autónomosyemprendedores.es, Social Security sources claim that the system is that, first, the self-employed pay their quota, and then the mutual society pays it back. However, they recognize, " the communication between the Treasury and mutual societies is not instantaneous”.

Therefore, all those self-employed workers who have been recognized with the POECATA (about 96,000) or the new low-income benefit (about 133,000), only paid 10%, but the mutual society returned the full quota.

In the near future, they explain, the Treasury of the Social Security will check the information with the mutual societies and the situation will be regularized.

Although the cases are less, there is also the option that Social Security owes money to the self-employed. This happens to those who joined one of the modalities of cessation of activity that entailed 100% exemption and in which the mutual societies do not return the money, but, directly, the fee is not charged.

But, by making a generalized default charge, they have been made to pay it. There are approximately 1,360 self-employed workers, to whom the 10% they have paid will have to be returned. If you are one of those affected, on this website of the Social Security you can manage the refund.

The third group of self-employed, the most majority (250,000), is those who are 'at peace' with Social Security. They are those who paid the cessation of activity until May, but, after, they have not applied again for aid.