Israeli business-travel firm Navan goes public in U.S., trading opens

Early trading in shares of Navan, a developer of corporate travel and expense management software, has started on Freedom Finance’s trading platform. The company is the third Israeli-founded tech firm to go public this year, following Via and eToro. The stock will debut on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol NAVN later today, October 30.

Navan raised $923.1 million in its IPO, selling 30 million shares at $25 apiece, the midpoint of its $24-26 marketed range. According to Reuters, the deal gives Navan a market value of $6.21 billion, down from the $9.2 billion valuation achieved in its 2022 funding round amid a cooling capital market.

The offering was led by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Jefferies, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, Citizens Capital Markets, Oppenheimer, MUFG, Needham, and BTIG.

Proceeds from the IPO will go toward partially repaying debt, according to the company’s SEC filings. Earlier this year, Navan raised $100 million via SAFE ("simple agreement for future equity") notes, which are to convert into equity following the IPO. An additional $195 million in convertible bonds will also be transformed into shares.

Navan, formerly TripActions, was founded in 2015 by Israeli entrepreneurs Ariel Cohen and Ilan Twig. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the company maintains a large R&D center in Israel, Globes, an Israeli business publication, reports.

Originally focused on corporate travel management, Navan nearly collapsed during the pandemic as global travel came to a standstill. However, the founders used the crisis to pivot and expand into corporate payments, event bookings, and expense management, CTech notes.

Today, Navan’s all-in-one platform covers nearly every stage of business travel, from booking flights and hotels to selecting restaurants, managing entertainment, and processing reimbursements. The company serves over 10,000 corporate clients, including Heineken, Zoom, Canva, Lyft, and Shopify, according to Capital.com.

In the last 12 months, Navan processed $3.8 billion in payments (up 18%) and $7.6 billion in flight and hotel bookings (up 34%).

For the first half of 2025, revenue rose 30% year over year to $329 million. The operating loss narrowed to $28 million from $53 million, but the net loss widened to $100 million due to high debt-servicing costs.

Navan competes with major players including Booking.com, American Express, Ramp, and Brex. The company says its platform helps clients cut travel expenses by 15%, with half of all service requests now handled by AI without human intervention.

Investor appetite for fintech and travel tech remains strong, as reflected in the successful 2025 listings by eToro, Klarna, and StubHub. Yet analysts caution that Navan’s continued losses and high leverage remain concerns despite its annual revenue exceeding $600 million. The company currently has $657 million in debt versus $223 million in cash, CTech writes.

Reuters notes that the company's combined growth rate and free cash flow margin are 30%, based on Breakingviews calculations, some 10 percentage points short of measuring up to the so-called "rule of 40."

Still, AI could serve as a key growth driver, writes Reuters. Travel involves the sort of disparate and hard-to-pattern-match data that lends itself to analysis with large-language models. Navan uses such techniques, including for tailoring trips and collecting receipts, but there are "reasonable questions about whether it can keep an edge with such fast-moving technology." 

According to IPO Edge analyst Donovan Jones, the global travel and expense management market is expected to expand at a 16.9% CAGR through 2030, offering Navan ample room for growth despite intense competition. Meanwhile, the “bleisure” segment is already worth around $185 billion, CTech reports.

Freedom Holding analyst Alem Bektemirov has a target price of $33.20 per share, implying upside of about 33% from the IPO price. He notes that Navan’s valuation largely hinges on its ability to sustain rapid revenue growth. A faster slowdown in client sales could cause the share price to fall relative to current market expectations. In addition, a downtick in client acquisition or retention could weigh on performance.

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Freedom clients will be able to trade Navan shares before the start of the main U.S. session. Premarket trading will open 2-3 hours early, at 15:30-16:30 Astana time. Investors can participate by selecting the ticker NAVN on the Freedom platform.

The AI translation of this story was reviewed by a human editor.