Certify and Chrome River Join Forces to Challenge Concur

Certify and Chrome River, two leading travel expense automation companies, will merge in a deal valued at over $1 billion. Scale matters in the expense management business, as Concur well knows, and this creates a strong competitor in the market. K1 Investment Management will hold a majority stake in the new organization, while existing shareholders, including the companies’ founders and Bain Capital Ventures will retain minority stakes. With the merger, Certify and Chrome River will have more than 11,000 customers in more than 100 countries. Initially, the two businesses will operate independently. But the combination should allow both to accelerate shared investment in machine learning, artificial intelligence, analytics and reporting.