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CNBC Names Navan a Top Disruptor for 2024

CNBC Names Navan a Top Disruptor for 2024

The Navan Team

14 May 2024
3 minute read
Navan makes the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for 2024

Just a few short years after a pandemic cut our revenue to $0, Navan has not only survived — we’ve thrived, thanks to continuous innovations that have redefined the travel and expense industry.

And today, we’re excited to share that CNBC has recognized us as one of the 50 most disruptive companies on the planet.

How did we get here? By leaning into our mission — to make travel and expense easy — and by following our north star of focusing on all of our users, all of the time.

Here’s what the judges loved about Navan.

The Origins of Disruption

It will come as no surprise that generative AI played a role in the award. We immediately saw this technology’s potential, quickly launched our generative AI-powered chatbot, Ava, and evolved Ava’s AI powers soon after, with a dashboard that enables CFOs to pinpoint savings opportunities.

Concierge by Ava

But disruption doesn’t always arise from new technologies. It can also come from an ancient business practice: listening to customers.

One thing we heard: Even though many companies struggle to keep up with the manual work of processing expense reports and could benefit from Navan’s platform, some want to maintain their banking relationship — and thus their corporate cards. A year ago, harnessing the benefits of Navan Expense meant switching to the Navan card.

So we responded by launching Navan Connect, an innovative card-link technology that enables finance leaders to directly access the magic of Navan Expense with any enrolled Mastercard or Visa card. That, in turn, spurred an innovative partnership: The first corporate T&E system designed for Citibank customers, offering new capabilities to Citi’s existing 25,000 global commercial cardholders.

It’s finally possible to get real-time control over business spend with Navan Connect.

Amid all these developments, we also disrupted our own image, rebranding to Navan and consolidating our solutions into a single super-app.

Continuous innovation on every level — that’s what disruption is all about.

Inspiring Disruption

Here’s what makes us even prouder than making CNBC’s list: Enabling companies with the bandwidth to create disruptions of their own.

Beyond helping companies save money, Navan’s solutions give them something they can’t ever recover: time. By dramatically reducing the manual busywork that’s required with legacy T&E systems, Navan puts hours, days, even weeks back on employees’ calendars — everyone from finance teams to EAs and road warriors.

It’s time that they can use to increase their productivity, focus on the future, and brainstorm innovations.

Take Canva, where employees realized a savings of almost 30 minutes every time they booked a trip on Navan. In 2023, the inventive graphic design company snagged the No. 3 ranking on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list.

We’re proud to count other winning disruptors from 2023 as customers as well, including Chime, Stripe, Databricks, and the company ranked No. 1: OpenAI.

At Navan, our disruptive work never stops, even as we celebrate this exciting milestone. We continue to redefine the meaning of “disruptive innovation,” continue to push the boundaries of what T&E can do, and continue to give our customers ever-greater bandwidth to push boundaries of their own.

See how Navan can help turn your company into a disruptor: Book a demo today.

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