Mark Essien first encountered the problem of enterprise travel in 2016, nearly a decade before founding a company to address it. At the time, he was focused on Hotels.ng, the online hotel booking platform he launched in 2012.
To Essien, retail bookings were straightforward: a customer searched for a room and paid to reserve it. Enterprise travel, however, was far more complex.
Large clients frequently complained about internal approvals and compliance bottlenecks that went beyond simple booking logistics, a challenge Essien initially interpreted narrowly.
It would take years of repeated conversations with large corporate clients before the pattern became undeniable.
“They needed a more adapted interface, or something that works better for the actual problems that they were having,” he told in an interview. “So, not just the booking platform, but something that works within their own constraints, which is that they tend to be very large and have a lot of approval processes.”
Thoseinsights led to TripDesk, Essien’s AI-driven enterprise travel platform, founded in 2025. The platform is designed for large companies in sectors such as banking, telecommunications, mining, or fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).
TripDesk is more than travel
Corporate travel is a significant and recurring expense for multinational companies. According to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), business travel spending in the Middle East & Africa recovered to 111% of the 2019 level in 2025, while global spending was projected to reach $1.57 trillion.
While travel is embedded in large companies, booking a hotel is simple compared with navigating internal approval processes.
Before a trip is confirmed, requests often pass through multiple layers of internal approvals, including line managers, department heads, finance teams, and sometimes compliance officers. Essien believes these internal travel policies are usually scattered across PDFs and Human Resources manuals rather than centralised.
“When you have a several-level approval process, the person at the top is not really aware of every single thing going on,” he said, explaining that their decision may be based on the decision of one of the line managers.
In such companies, selecting a hotel room is just one step in a longer administrative process – the workflow TripDesk is designed to streamline.
TripDesk is an approval system built specifically for corporate travel. Each company maintains its own TripDesk ecosystem, with employee roles, departments, and travel policies fully configured.
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To initiate a travel request, employees enter details such as destination, duration, estimated costs, and allowances for meals and transportation.
The system then routes the request automatically through the appropriate approval chain based on the company’s internal structure. Managers receive the request via email or on their TripDesk dashboard, along with a summary of whether it falls within policy limits.
TripDesk acts as a compliance layer, cross-referencing requests against company policies and potential violations before approval.
Essien emphasised that the system reduces blind spots in large organisations where information is often fragmented. “AI goes through all those different [policy] documents, puts them all together, and then gives a summary,” he said.
Once approved, companies can choose whether TripDesk only manages the approval process or also goes on to complete bookings through partners, such as Hotels.ng in Nigeria and other providers in different countries.
Building for enterprise clients
TripDesk generates revenue through platform fees and booking-related charges. Companies pay upfront to access and deploy the approval system across their organisation.
When TripDesk completes bookings for hotels, car rentals, or other service fees, it also earns commission. When TripDesk completes bookings for hotels, car rentals, or other services, it collects service fees, and it also earns commissions when bookings are fulfilled through partner platforms.
Despite entering a market often assumed to require high-volume scale, TripDesk’s growth has been concentrated. The startup currently serves 30 enterprise clients, generating over $2.3 million in revenue within four months of launch.
“The companies are really large,” Essien said. TripDesk does not target small businesses or startups. Its typical client has at least 1,000 employees and often operates across multiple countries, which shapes the startup’s competitive environment.
Essien acknowledges traditional corporate travel agencies and global platforms like Wakanow and SAP Concur, but argues that most competitors address only fragments of the approval workflow rather than the full process.
Winning enterprise clients requires navigating complex decision-making structures. Many stakeholders are resistant to change, particularly when internal processes are involved.
“We have to hand-hold them and explain how this process is going to make things better,” he added.
TripDesk raised a modest, undisclosed seed round primarily intended to cover operational expenses.
“It wasn’t a large seed round. It was just enough to cover the first stage,” he said.
Now profitable, TripDesk is not actively seeking venture capital. “We are under no pressure to fundraise. We are growing well, and we have very good margins compared to our costs,” Essien said.
Over the next few years, Essien plans to deepen TripDesk’s presence among large enterprises across Sub-Saharan Africa. For now, expansion is tied to existing clients that operate in multiple countries.
