Roomex, the travel and expenses platform aimed businesses with a mobile workforce, has been acquired by Fleetcor Technologies in Atlanta.

Roomex, founded by Jack Donaghy and Karl Glennon in 2000, enables customers to book, manage, pay and analyse all accommodation, rail and expenses in one place.

The venture is based in Dublin with outposts in London and Munich.

Accounts for 2020 signed off in February 2022 disclosed equity invested of €17m and accumulated loses of €13m

Fleetcor, quoted on the New York Stock Exchange, is a leading global business payments company with annual revenue £2.8bn.

In Association with

Fleetcor said the purchase extends its US  workforce lodging business to Europe and provides a platform for further international expansion.

Its lodging business books tens of millions of hotel room nights annually across a network of 45,000 hotel properties primarily in the US. The lodging solutions provide customers with savings, specialised controls and consolidated invoices.

Roomex has 600 workforce business customers who have stayed in c.50,000 hotels. In 2020 the business had turnover of €2.1m and reported an operating loss of €3.8m after booking a €1.1m amortisation charge.

The Roomex 2020 accounts filing reported that during 2019 and 2020 the company engaged in a funding round which raised €6m to fund market growth and expansion.

Roomex acts as an intermediary between corporate customer and the hotel, offering efficiencies in the booking process for both parties.

Turnover is recorded as the fees and commission earned rather than the amounts invoiced to clients.

The amount invoiced to clients in 2020 was €22.6m, down from €45.8m in 2019 before the pandemic.

Fleetcor chairman and CEO Ron Clarke commented: “Roomex provides us a base of operations, expertise and a hotel network from which we can build out the lodging business across Europe while leveraging the significant client base we already have there.”

Roomex CEO Garry Moroney, who stepped into the role in 2019 after exiting his venture Clavis Insight, stated: “We are thrilled to join the Fleetcor team. Fleetcor’s distribution scale, payment solutions and client relationships will enable Roomex to expand its product offering and accelerate our sales growth.”

According to Renatus, Roomex’s legal advisers are a Maples team led by Morgan Pierse, Colm Rafferty, Lianne Canty, Andrew Colton and William Fogarty.

Photo: Roomex founders Jack Donaghy and Karl Glennon