How to Invest in Navan Pre-IPO

Navan, formerly TripActions, built an all-in-one travel, corporate card, and expense management solution that helps companies increase productivity and cut costs. The platform empowers clients to easily book, view, and manage business travel, as well as expenses. Navan's platform combines the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and data science with a modern, user-friendly design.

The company is growing briskly, driven in part by a string of acquisitions that have transformed it into a leading technology-first corporate travel platform. Thousands of companies trust Navan for their corporate travel and expense management needs.

Navan still has a long growth runway ahead of it. That has many investors eager to book their purchase of its stock when the company completes its widely anticipated initial public offering (IPO). Here's everything you need to know about investing in Navan, including how to potentially buy pre-IPO shares.

Publicly traded?

Is Navan publicly traded?

Navan was not a publicly traded company as of early 2024. The all-in-one travel, corporate card, and expense management company was a private company backed by venture capital funds, including Coatue Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Base Partners, Elad Gil, Greenoaks Capital Management, Zeev Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, and Addition Ventures.

When will it IPO?

When will Navan IPO?

Navan didn't have an IPO on the calendar as of early 2024. However, the company has been gearing up to go public for the past few years. It was preparing to go public in late 2022, reportedly seeking a $12 billion valuation. Instead, it ended up raising additional money from venture capital funds at a $9.2 billion valuation due to challenging market conditions.

Since then, the company has focused on reducing costs and improving profitability to boost its IPO appeal. In an article on TechCrunch in December 2023, CEO Ariel Cohen said:

"I think eventually we will be a public company. We've raised around $1.4 billion to date and maturity-wise, we are there, to be public. Growth-wise, we are growing extremely fast, and a lot of our metrics would support being public. I don't think the market is there right now."

While the market wasn't there then, it might be getting close. An article by Fast Company in March 2024 said that Navan was working with investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS 1.09%) to prepare for an IPO in 2024. That makes it a top IPO stock to watch.

How to buy

How to buy Navan stock

Because Navan has yet to complete its IPO, you can't buy shares of the travel and expense management company in your regular brokerage account. However, accredited investors (i.e., high-net-worth individuals or those with high incomes) can sometimes buy pre-IPO shares of companies like Navan on secondary platforms, such as Equity Bee, Equity Zen, or Forge Global (NASDAQ:FRGE).

However, non-accredited investors will have to wait for the company's IPO to buy shares, which could happen in 2024. In the meantime, they can consider investing in a similar company. Here are three top alternatives to Navan that interested investors can buy right now.

Bill Holdings

Bill Holdings (BILL 1.75%) is a leader in financial automation software focused on small and midsized businesses. The company's integrated platform helps companies control their payables, receivables, and spend and expense management. To expand its capabilities, it has made several acquisitions, including spend management company Divvy. It has also been an early leader in using AI-powered tools.

Expedia Group

Expedia Group (EXPE -1.03%) is a leading global travel company. The platform features consumer travel brands (Expedia, Hotels.com, VBRO, Travelocity, Hotwire, and Trivago), a product and technological strategy group, and a business-to-business (B2B) solutions platform.

The company's B2B platform delivered a record performance in 2023, growing its revenue by 33%. That segment has benefitted from the work done in its product and technology strategy group, which has enabled it to roll out specific B2B innovations over the past few years to grow that platform.

Paylocity Holding

Paylocity Holding (PCTY -0.0%) is a leader in providing payroll and human capital management software solutions. The company has a growing product suite and has recently launched new AI-powered tools. It has also made acquisitions to enhance its capabilities, including acquiring Trace in late 2023 to help companies analyze and manage their headcount plans.

Those who want to buy one of these Navan alternatives can purchase shares in any brokerage account. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to invest in stocks.

Step 1: Open a brokerage account

You'll have to open and fund a brokerage account before buying shares of any company. If you still need to open one, here are some of the best-rated brokers and trading platforms. Take your time researching the brokers to find the best one for you.

Step 2: Figure out your budget

Before making your first trade, you must determine how much money you want to invest. You'll then want to decide how to allocate that money. The Motley Fool's investing philosophy recommends building a diversified portfolio of 25 or more stocks you plan to hold for at least five years.

You don't have to get there on the first day, though. For example, if you have $1,000 available to start investing, you might want to begin by allocating that money equally across at least 10 stocks and then grow from there.

Step 3: Do your research

It's essential to thoroughly research a company before buying its shares. You should learn about how it makes money, its competitors, its balance sheet, and other factors to make sure you have a solid grasp of whether the company can grow value for its shareholders over the long term.

Step 4: Place an order

Once you've opened and funded a brokerage account, set your investing budget, and researched the stock, it's time to buy shares. The process is relatively straightforward. Go to your brokerage account's order page and fill out all the relevant information, including:

• The number of shares you want to buy (or the amount you want to invest to purchase fractional shares).
• The stock ticker (BILL for Bill Holdings, EXPE for Expedia Group, or PCTY for Paylocity Holding).
• Whether you want to place a limit order or a market order. The Motley Fool recommends using a market order since it guarantees you buy shares immediately at market price.

Once you complete the order page, click to submit your trade and become a shareholder of one of these Navan alternatives. You will follow a similar process to buy an IPO stock like Navan when it goes public. When shares start trading publicly, select its chosen stock ticker to buy Navan through your brokerage account.

Profitability

Is Navan profitable?

A key aspect of investment research is reviewing a company's profitability. You will want to see that a company is growing its profits or is at least on the path to making money. Rising profits tend to drive a company's ability to increase value for its shareholders over the long term.

As a private company, Navan didn't publicly report its profitability metrics. Because of that, there isn't much publicly available information about its financial results.

However, the company cut about 5% of its workforce in late 2023 to improve its profitability. In an article by Tech Crunch, a company spokesperson stated:

"We are refocusing efforts to move faster toward profitability as we enter the next phase of the company. As such, we have made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our global workforce by 5% to increase operational efficiencies as we continue to reinvent travel and expense through innovation."

Those comments suggest Navan is not yet profitable but is working toward reaching that goal by restructuring its workforce. Investors should examine Navan's financial results closely when it releases its IPO prospectus to see whether it has turned the corner and is making money.

Should I invest?

Should I invest in Navan?

Investing in individual stocks can be a deeply personal decision. Here are a few reasons you might decide to invest in Navan:

• You use Navan's corporate travel and expense solutions and like the value it provides users.
• You want to invest in IPO stocks with strong growth potential.
• You believe Navan can get on the road to profitability.
• You believe corporate travel will continue to grow, driving the need for solutions like Navan.
• You understand the risks of investing in an IPO stock, including that they can be very volatile.

On the other hand, here are some reasons you might decide not to invest in Navan.

• You're unsure what Navan does or how it makes money.
• You use a rival solution and don't see the value in Navan's platform.
• You're concerned about corporate travel's growth potential due to lower-cost alternative solutions like Zoom (ZM 0.08%).
• You're at or nearing retirement and can't afford the risk of a potentially volatile IPO stock.
• You're concerned that Navan won't turn the corner and be consistently profitable.

ETF options

ETFs with exposure to Navan

Picking a portfolio of stocks you must actively manage isn't for everyone. That's why many prefer passive investing approaches like exchange-traded funds (ETFs). They make it easy to passively invest in a company through a fund focused on a specific theme or broad market index.

Since it's not publicly traded yet, you can't use ETFs to gain passive exposure to Navan. However, you can invest in ETFs focused on a theme similar to Navan's. Here are a few thematic ETFs to consider investing in while you await Navan's IPO:

• Amplify Travel Tech ETF (NYSEMKT:AWAY): This travel ETF focuses on travel technology businesses. The fund had 31 holdings in early 2024, including Expedia (the third-largest at 4.4% of its net assets). This fund has a 0.75% ETF expense ratio.
• Global X FinTech ETF (NYSEMKT:FINX): This fund focuses on emerging financial technology (fintech) companies. It had 64 holdings in early 2024, including Bill Holdings (19th-largest at 1.9% of its holdings). This ETF's expense ratio is 0.68%.
• Renaissance IPO ETF (IPO 1.56%): This ETF focuses on recent IPOs. It holds the most liquid, newly listed U.S. IPOs, rebalancing every quarter with the latest offerings it will hold for three years. It had 53 holdings in early 2024, including many technology stocks (37.1% of the fund's holdings). The fund offers broad exposure to recent IPOs for a 0.6% ETF expense ratio.

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The bottom line on Navan

Navan's purpose-built, easy-to-use technology platform for travel and corporate expenses is winning over clients by saving them time and money. While thousands of companies already trust Navan, it has a long growth runway ahead. That growth potential has investors eager for its IPO, which could come in 2024.

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