Navan

includes Navan Edge, Navan Liquid, Navan Rewards Program

47 statements across 10 episodes · 25 bullish · 12 bearish · 8 people on the record · first statement Feb 8, 2023 by Ariel Cohen · said 272 times in 39 episodes since 2019 · across every show →

Mentions by year, the whole family

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (125), Ariel Cohen (81), Jason Lemkin (11), Carlos Delatorre (10), Oren Zeev (8), Rich Liu (6), Arif Jan Mohamed (6), Rory O'Driscoll (4)

tap a year for its mentions
005081001520192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
081520192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
0057.5101520192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 91 mentions in 14 episodes 7 per episode
2025 43 mentions in 6 episodes 7 per episode
2024 9 mentions in 2 episodes 5 per episode
2023 74 mentions in 10 episodes 7 per episode
2022 19 mentions in 2 episodes 10 per episode
2021 3 mentions in 1 episode
2020 25 mentions in 3 episodes 8 per episode
2019 8 mentions in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Navan, oldest first

Feb 8, 2023
Disclosure
Cohen: Navan reaches 3,000 global employees
“We have 3000 employees globally.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 6:50 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cohen: Navan's AI bot handles 30% of support interactions
“And that bot today handles 30% of our support interactions.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 36:57 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 negative
Opinion
Cohen: SAP and Salesforce have not innovated in decades
“Salesforce and SAP, which are not innovating. I think the last time that SAP innovated something was in the nineties, and the last time that the, that Salesforce innovated was in the beginning of 2000.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 5:50 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cohen: Navan achieves up to 100% travel attainment versus industry's 40-50%
“It's I think that it goes by Segment more of the higher end of the market, what we are calling named enterprise, and even mid-market will get 100% attainment. As you start to go down market, you are getting more towards the 80% attainment, and even that number…”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 50:41 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 bullish
Disclosure
Cohen: Navan launches completely free tier for lower-end market customers
“On the lower end of the market, we are free, right? And that's new. We are completely free. You go in and you don't need to pay us.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 45:35 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Cohen: Navan could hit 85% gross margins in two to three years
“Going to 80, maybe even 85. 85 is not model deal, but maybe even 85, ah, in the next two to three years.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 42:47 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 positive
Disclosure
Cohen: Navan co-founder is building products to obsolete our current suite
“Actually, my co-founder right now is running two projects That are making a, basically a lot of what we've done to date obsolete, and I think that's how you maintain innovation.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 8:25 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 neutral
Opinion
Cohen: Operational infrastructure is Navan's primary moat over AI
“So I think the moat That we've created is actually not around that technology. The moat is around all of the infrastructure here that allows us to go globally, to service our customers globally, to provide one T&E report for all of the companies that are using…”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 44:05 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Cohen: Navan's AI bot will handle 90% of support by 2024
“I think that this AVA, I think will probably by the end of the year will replace 50% of our interactions in the contact center, and I think by the end of next year, it will replace 90% of it”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 38:24 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 bullish
Disclosure
Cohen: Navan's current gross margin is 75%
“Our gross margins today are 75%.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 42:10 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 positive
Assertion Supported
Cohen: Netflix, Heineken, and Adobe signed with Navan during COVID lockdowns
“Our biggest customers would sign up with us, like, customers like Netflix, Heineken, Adobe, sign with us on these times where people were not traveling because, again, change management, The easy thing to do at that time.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 20:31 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 negative
Disclosure
Cohen: Navan is seeking Slack alternatives due to declining product quality
“The team right now is looking for alternatives. Not because you know, we love Slack. But you can see that over time, the search works a little bit, you know, worse. The buttons are moving to the wrong places. I care a lot about product and design. And I think …”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 34:02 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 bearish
Assertion Partly supported
Cohen: Public travel competitors operate at 50-55% margins versus Navan's 75%
“You're talking about 50, 55% gross margins compared to 75 today.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 42:42 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 bullish
Prediction Held up
Cohen: Navan is not for sale and will not sell
“We are not for sale, and there is a reason for that, and by the way, ah, we've, ah, kind of passed this test, ah, several times. Other companies could have sent me to retirement a few times by just, ah, you know, buying us, and we didn't sell because we think …”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 33:15 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 8, 2023 bullish
Disclosure
Cohen: Navan scrapped its internal AI stack to adopt OpenAI
“And so we decided to do it. We decided to kill what we have to use the infrastructure. The bot is the bot, you know, the UI is the UI, the ability to change the flight comes from our API to change the flight, but then to use their technology.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 8, 2023 ▶ 38:08 Ariel Cohen: The Death of Salesforce; How OpenAI is Changing the Travel Industry | 20VC #975 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 19, 2023
Disclosure
Mark Goldberger closed $13M in revenue during his first year at Navan
“I closed about thirteen million dollars of revenue that first year.”
Mark Goldberger Apr 19, 2023 ▶ 5:00 Mark Goldberger: The Ultimate Guide to Enterprise Sales | E1003 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 7, 2023 positive
Assertion Supported
Liu: Navan co-founder Ariel Cohen personally closed early sales deals
“Ariel at Navon was really involved with a lot of the earliest deals and knew the product, knew the people really well.”
Rich Liu Jun 7, 2023 ▶ 19:34 Rich Liu: Sales in 2023; How to Onboard, Manage and Scale Reps; PLG vs Enterprise Growth | E1023 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 24, 2025 negative
Assertion Supported
Navan Suffered a 90% Revenue Drop When COVID-19 Began
“We had about a 90% drop in revenues.”
Carlos Delatorre Jan 24, 2025 ▶ 1:09:42 Carlos Delatorre, CRO @Harness: Why Every Sales Rep Should Do Pipeline Generation | E1251 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 24, 2025 positive
What-if
Navan Would Have Failed Without Its Pandemic Strategy Pivot
“And so by going up market and by building a second product that company didn't die and it would've.”
Carlos Delatorre Jan 24, 2025 ▶ 1:11:29 Carlos Delatorre, CRO @Harness: Why Every Sales Rep Should Do Pipeline Generation | E1251 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 25, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Harry Stebbings: Navan's S-1 shows $613M revenue and 32% growth
“Six hundred and thirteen million revenues, growing 32% year on year, 10,000 customers, a 110% NDR”
Harry Stebbings Sep 25, 2025 ▶ 42:26 The Impact of H1B Visas on Startups in the US & NVIDIA Invests $100BN Into OpenAI · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 25, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
O'Driscoll: Navan held operating expenses flat to slightly down year-over-year
“If you actually look in the P&L at Navan, right, they really held OPEX flat to, in fact, slightly down this year versus the prior year.”
Rory O'Driscoll Sep 25, 2025 ▶ 51:54 The Impact of H1B Visas on Startups in the US & NVIDIA Invests $100BN Into OpenAI · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 6, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Stebbings: Lightspeed turned $257M into $1B on Navan for ~4x return
“Lightspeed was two 57 to a billion, so it's just under a four X blended.”
Harry Stebbings Nov 6, 2025 ▶ 17:04 Is a $4.5BN Exit Enough in VC? & Harvey Raises $150M & Why Google is a Buy and Amazon is a Sell · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 6, 2025 negative
Opinion
O'Driscoll: Navan's IPO Proves Bill Gurley's Pricing Critique Is Wrong
“Actually, this actually shows that sometimes Bill Gurley is wrong because his idea is that these IPO share allocations are called free money. You get your IPO. It always goes up and the leaving value on the table. This is an example of an IPO where, you know, …”
Rory O'Driscoll Nov 6, 2025 ▶ 4:22 Is a $4.5BN Exit Enough in VC? & Harvey Raises $150M & Why Google is a Buy and Amazon is a Sell · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 8, 2026 negative
Assertion Supported
Lemkin: Navan was forced to IPO due to debt obligations
“I think Navon had seven hundred million in debt and only two hundred million in cash. It had to IPO to pay off its debt.”
Jason Lemkin Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 1:03:20 Groq’s $20BN NVIDIA Deal | Why Sam Altman Doesn’t Care About Dilution & Invisible Unemployment 2026 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 8, 2026 bullish
Opinion
O'Driscoll: Navan is significantly undervalued at 4x ARR
“The fundamentals are this is a 27% growth company trading at four times revenue that's cashflow positive and operating income positive on a non-GAAP basis. Actually, after this call, I made a mental note to follow Andreessen and buy some, right? Perfectly good…”
Rory O'Driscoll Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 1:01:55 Groq’s $20BN NVIDIA Deal | Why Sam Altman Doesn’t Care About Dilution & Invisible Unemployment 2026 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 8, 2026 bearish
Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2027
Lemkin: Tech startups below Figma's caliber will struggle to IPO
“If you're not Figma or better, it's going to be rough out there. And that all these VCs are saying you can IPO at a hundred million and the IPO, the Vaughn says no to me. It says it's just barely cracked opened.”
Jason Lemkin Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 1:03:58 Groq’s $20BN NVIDIA Deal | Why Sam Altman Doesn’t Care About Dilution & Invisible Unemployment 2026 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 2, 2026 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Zeev: Navan faces zero risk of AI disruption and will benefit hugely
“Now, specifically with Navan, which a company I know well, I'm a hundred percent convinced that there's zero chance that we get disrupted by AI, and there is a hundred percent chance that we're huge beneficiaries of AI.”
Oren Zeev Feb 2, 2026 ▶ 6:25 Oren Zeev: Why AI Growth Expectations Are BS & Won't Last? Why GPs Shouldn't Tell LPs Their Strategy
Feb 2, 2026 negative
Assertion Supported
Delta Airlines refused to work with Navan in 2018 existential crisis
“In 2018 or 19, we had an existential crisis when Delta Airlines decided that they hated us, and you cannot really succeed as a travel company when one of the three major airlines in the U.S. Is not willing to work with you in the swing and all that, and luckil…”
Oren Zeev Feb 2, 2026 ▶ 25:20 Oren Zeev: Why AI Growth Expectations Are BS & Won't Last? Why GPs Shouldn't Tell LPs Their Strategy
Feb 2, 2026 neutral
Assertion Supported
Navan was the first company to conduct COVID layoffs over Zoom
“They were the first company to let people go. And they got so much shit on, ah, for it because they fired people Over Zoom, as if there was any other way they could have, and they still got a lot of shit from the press”
Oren Zeev Feb 2, 2026 ▶ 26:30 Oren Zeev: Why AI Growth Expectations Are BS & Won't Last? Why GPs Shouldn't Tell LPs Their Strategy
Feb 2, 2026 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Zeev: Navan's gross margins were around 50% before AI adoption
“Gross margins you know, three years ago before AI, our gross margins were around 50%. It was all the cost of support.”
Oren Zeev Feb 2, 2026 ▶ 6:45 Oren Zeev: Why AI Growth Expectations Are BS & Won't Last? Why GPs Shouldn't Tell LPs Their Strategy
Feb 2, 2026 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Zeev: Almost all customer support at Navan will be handled by AI
“And ultimately I believe that If not all the, almost, almost all the support is going to be done by AI.”
Oren Zeev Feb 2, 2026 ▶ 7:11 Oren Zeev: Why AI Growth Expectations Are BS & Won't Last? Why GPs Shouldn't Tell LPs Their Strategy
Feb 7, 2026
Insight
Cohen: Navan fears unknown early-stage disruptors over visible competitors
“I tell you what is the only competitor that I'm worried about. The one that I don't know about. The one that sits, like, the ones like Navan, 1011 years ago, that are ignorant enough about the problem, but are really, really, really good, that will create some…”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 12:39 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 negative
Assertion Supported
Stebbings: Navan's market cap dropped to $2.8B
“Today, the market cap is 2.8 billion dollars.”
Harry Stebbings Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 0:13 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 positive
Assertion Supported
Cohen: Unmanaged corporate travel is larger than the managed market
“There is the managed side, you know, Amex and Concare. There is the non-managed. Everybody that are doing whatever they want to. It's actually a bigger market, and we think that we have an opportunity and the right to win in both markets, and that's what matte…”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 9:19 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Feb 2046
Ariel Cohen plans to build Navan for another 20 years
“11 years in this journey, and probably at least for me, another 20, 20 years to go.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 4:36 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026
Insight
Cohen: Enterprise customers require public company transparency and stability
“We have been starting to take, share in the enterprise segment, assigning more and more and more customers, and for them, for that type of segment, it is actually important that you're going to be public. They want the transparency. They want to understand you…”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 7:20 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 bullish
Opinion
Cohen: Navan's deep travel ticketing plumbing creates an unassailable moat
“An area that I actually think it's almost impossible to disrupt us is the travel side. To create the infrastructure that we've created to bring the content into the platform, the plumbing there, I don't think that people fully understand the plumbing that you …”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 28:43 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 positive
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Cohen: Navan has only lost six enterprise customers ever; five returned
“In the history of Navan, we lost six enterprise customers. Five of them are back, ok?”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 18:32 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Cohen: Navan's co-founder vibe-coded their expense product in six hours
“I gave the team a challenge, and actually Ilan, my co-founder, obviously took it first and did it over the weekend to vibe code our expense product. And it took him six hours to do that.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 29:49 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 positive
Assertion Supported
Cohen: Navan's AI handled 55% of support chats during JFK shutdown
“55% of the chats were run through Eva, ok? Our call center, in the worst time during this event, The wait time was 16 minutes, one six.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 19:44 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026
What-if
Ariel Cohen: Building Navan required sacrificing early family time
“It wouldn't. It wouldn't. That's the price. That's the price.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 49:24 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026
Assertion Partly supported
Cohen: Upside Travel raised $200M versus Navan's $4M in the same year
“When we started Navan, There was this company, Upside Travel. We raised four million dollars. They raised 200. Same year, ok?”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 11:03 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Feb 2031
Cohen: Navan will ultimately capture the entire corporate travel market
“And I think as the, as long as we will service our customers and our users, the business will continue to gain share. We're going to take the entire market. I really believe in it.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 36:38 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 positive
Disclosure
Cohen: Navan's internal AI routing is shifting significantly toward Google models
“We've seen our agentic platform, Cognition, plays between models based on who will give you the best answer, and actually we saw movement much more to Google recently. A lot of the transactions with Edge, which we didn't release yet, but you know, we have it i…”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 25:55 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cohen: Intimidation by incumbent Concur delayed Navan's launch by three years
“For us, travel, we didn't know anything about it, and Conquer back then looked so scary that probably we've delayed that, this journey by two to three years.”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 45:41 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Feb 7, 2026 bearish
Opinion
Cohen: Sierra, OpenAI, and Anthropic Fail at Complex Vertical AI Needs
“There is nothing even remotely closed to what is needed when you go to a complex vertical out there. Okay. And it's definitely not in the kind of Sierra level, but even if you take it to the level of the APIs, If I'm kind of taking an anthropic and an open AI,…”
Ariel Cohen Feb 7, 2026 ▶ 21:00 20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen
Sep 5, 2026 bearish
Assertion Open · timeframe Sep 2027
Stebbings: Tech companies like Klarna build their own customer support AI
“And then the worst thing about this market is that for any sophisticated buyer, an Airwallex, a Klarna, a Navan, a technology-facing company, everyone has built their own.”
Harry Stebbings Sep 5, 2026 ▶ 50:51 How to Build Your Own Data Center & Why Every Startup Should Do It
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.