Unparalleled business travel experiences

Floodgate Fund is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, Calif., focused on early-stage investments and has backed many successful technology companies including Twitter, Lyft, Okta, Twitch, and Chegg. Their team of partners, principals, and associates cares deeply about building relationships with talented and visionary entrepreneurs around the world.

Business travel is crucial for Floodgate, but high prices and poor service caused problems for the organization’s unmanaged travel program. With employees and executive assistants booking trips on a variety of consumer sites, travel disruptions were leaving employees stranded, and travel costs skyrocketed when the company resumed travel in 2021.

Now, with Spotnana’s Travel-as-a-Service Platform, all of Floodgate’s travel takes place on one platform with support from a team of experienced, world-class agents.

“The whole team thinks that this is a much better way to run your travel program,” said Patricia Ericson, Floodgate’s Chief Administrative Officer. “The feedback has been very positive.”

Floodgate administrators make bookings for travelers and change their trips on the fly with powerful tools embedded in Spotnana’s app and online booking tool. Travelers self-book, as well, and receive seamless service from administrators and agents, since Spotnana is built on cloud-based technology that provides a single unified environment for travel management.

Spotnana has empowered Floodgate with not just a delightful travel search and booking experience, but the support they need to meet their commitments when things go wrong.

Two Floodgate employees were traveling internationally to a conference, for example, when cancellations threatened their ability to arrive in time for a set of important meetings. Spotnana agents rebooked the two in a matter of minutes, avoiding the disruption and allowing them to arrive on time.

“Our employees would have missed the most important parts of a conference they were flying out to, if it had not been for Spotnana being able to rebook them and figure all this out on a Sunday afternoon,” said Ericson

Bringing the brightest minds together

Beyond providing seamless business travel for Floodgate employees, Spotnana also powers travel for two incubator programs that connect and develop young entrepreneurs around the country.

Floodgate’s Reactor program brings together undergrad entrepreneurs from around the U.S. for a program based around teaching talented future founders to identify disruptive business ideas and build successful startups that solve industry problems. 

The eight-month program features a series of in-person workshops and sessions that are powered by Spotnana’s guest travel capabilities. Spotnana’s features for administrators and 24/7 agent support team have made a once complex and time-consuming travel process simple.

“It’s even heavier on travel now, in that our Reactors are even more spread throughout the U.S.,” said Ericson. “We brought all 30 of them in to attend a retreat from all over the place, and Spotnana made all those accommodations seamlessly.”

Travel for OUTLIERS, Floodgate’s second incubator program that is focused on Web3 and DeFi innovation, is also powered by Spotnana. The 10-week program is even more heavily travel-centric than the Reactors program, with young entrepreneurs from around the country meeting in person with fellow cohort members, mentors, and a variety of guest speakers.

“They’re not Floodgate employees, but it is critical for our business that those experiences go well,” said Ericson.

The ability to coordinate guest travel for two innovative incubator programs is helping to propel Floodgate’s business forward while connecting a new generation of technology entrepreneurs.

Prepared for future growth

As the Floodgate team looks forward to 2023, the firm’s travel program has been transformed by their partnership with Spotnana.

“I feel less worried about my team,” said Ericson, who oversees Floodgate’s team of executive assistants. “Overall, I know that they are in better hands and therefore that makes me feel more at ease in my day to day.”

With Floodgate’s travel program set to grow and incorporate more international travel, the company has the support they need to expand employee travel and achieve their business goals.

“My goal is that every single Floodgate trip will be run through Spotnana going forward,” said Ericson.