Brex: Startup Travel Spending Up Amid More Globally Distributed Workforce

Business travel has blossomed at startup companies in recent years, representing the largest year-over-year increase of any spending category in 2023, according to data compiled global spend platform Brex.

The data, based on spending from Brex's customer base of more than 10,000 startups, showed that as of October 2023, travel and entertainment spending at later-stage startups had increased 512 percent since the first quarter of 2020. At early-stage startups, the increase for that period was 390 percent, and at seed-stage startups, it was 129 percent.

Brex also said airfare spending for company offsite events this year has increased threefold year over year.

The growth comes as more startups have adopted fully remote or hybrid working models, according to Brex. That has also pushed up international travel spending among startups, with global spending for startups in the third quarter of 2023 accounting for 11.2 percent of total spending transactions, up a percentage point compared with the third quarter of 2022. Brex also noted that the number of corporate cards being shipped to Canada is up 10 percent year over year, indicating that startups are taking a more global approach in hiring.

"Supporting such a geo-distributed workforce is a relatively new phenomenon, and founders are challenged with efficiently building a borderless culture," Brex said in its report. "The focus this year has been on enabling teams to meaningfully contribute to the growth and success of the company no matter where they are."