Serial BTN Top 25 nominee—this is his 12th entry, the most anyone has recorded—and serial entrepreneur Steve Singh will also shortly become a serial grandparent with the imminent birth of his second grandchild. But any competitor, and there are plenty given how many different corporate travel-related companies he owns, hoping his appetite for work might be diminishing are set for disappointment.
"I'm having a lot of fun," he said. "We're all privileged to get a certain amount of time in life, and I want to make a positive difference in whatever corner of the world I operate in."
"Corner" hardly does justice to the scale of his activities in 2025. Singh's travel management company, Direct Travel, which operates on the distribution and back-office infrastructure of Spotnana that is largely owned by his investment vehicle Madrona Ventures, bought long-time partner ATPI. Direct also began installing Avenir, a customer platform combining Spotnana's booking capability with two more Madrona-backed products: group travel planning tool Troop and payment-and-expense tool Center (which was further sold to Amex card company this year).
For good measure, during 2025 Singh also backed guest travel management app Juno, and Otto The Agent, an AI-powered assistant that plans trips based on a traveler's schedule and preferences. Piloting of Otto in managed travel programs began in December. Singh said Direct similarly is investing in agentic travel and he believes that it will transform business travel in the next three to four years, along with voice-based booking, and offers-and-orders-type distribution such as Spotnana.
Arguably the greatest influence of these many ventures is that cumulatively they offer an alternative to the dominant partnership between the world's largest TMC, American Express Global Business Travel, newly engorged by its acquisition of CWT, and booking/expense giant SAP Concur (founded by Singh three decades ago and sold in 2014). Their alliance has left other TMCs and their clients wondering where else they can turn. Commentators have suggested Singh's ever-growing tech constellation may provide the answer.
BTN Group's new owner, JTB, was the most notable TMC to adopt Spotnana this year. Singh said he is in talks with others.
But a natural concern for any potential Spotnana customer is Singh's own TMC competitor, Direct Travel. "The reason we invested in Direct Travel and then bought ATPI was to set an example of what can be done on the Spotnana platform," said Singh. "We remain open to partnering with anyone else in the TMC space. The way we contract with our partners is that all of them get all the same innovations at exactly the same time."