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Luiz Moura’s journey went from the door of a hotel in Belo Horizonte to leading a corporate travel platform that closed 2025 with billion-dollar revenue, 850,000 travelers per month, and a heavy investment in artificial intelligence to reduce costs for large companies
Luiz Moura got to know the travel sector through a less glamorous door. Still a student, he worked carrying luggage in a luxury hotel in Belo Horizonte, escorted guests to their rooms, and explained where the restaurants were located.
Years later, the 36-year-old from Minas Gerais appears as the co-founder of Voll, a corporate travel company that closed 2025 with R$ 1.4 billion in revenue and is aiming for R$ 2.2 billion in 2026.
The company serves names like Itaú, Nubank, iFood, Riachuelo, and Localiza, according to information published by Exame in July 2026.
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The story draws attention because it doesn’t start in an investment room, but in the daily operation of hospitality. Moura went through customer service, events, travel agency, and technology before entering the market that today seeks to digitize one of the largest expenses of large companies.
The beginning was at the hotel, but the turning point came when he realized that companies were still purchasing travel as in the past
Son of a public school teacher and the owner of a wheelbarrow factory, Moura grew up in Belo Horizonte watching his parents work consistently. At 16, during an exchange program in California, he met a retired Coca-Cola executive who had traveled to dozens of countries for work.
Her response about the places she visited changed the young man’s career path. Back in Brazil, he studied Public Relations and paid for college by working as a luggage carrier in a hotel in the capital of Minas Gerais, where he learned to deal with travelers before thinking about platforms, apps, or artificial intelligence.
After graduation, in 2011, he worked at a small communication agency and then entered the events area of a corporate travel agency.
It was there that the bottleneck was identified: the sector still relied on manual processes, which were not very scalable and slow for companies that needed to control costs, internal policy, and employee service.
In 2017, a corporate mobility app became the seed of Voll
Voll was born in 2017 within a travel agency, from a project to manage corporate mobility. The initial idea connected services like Uber and 99, at a time when app-based transportation was gaining momentum in Brazil.
The project grew until it separated from the original operation in a spin-off. Then came investment rounds, the expansion of the platform to include airline tickets and hotels, and the purchase of the very agency where the business had originated.
Today, the company has about 700 employees, mostly in São Paulo, and more than 850,000 corporate travelers using the app per month. The base makes it clear that Voll is not just competing for hotel or ticket reservations, but for the complete management of travel undertaken by employees of large companies.
The market helps explain why banks, retailers, and apps have come into focus
Brazil is among the ten largest global markets for corporate travel. Data from the Business Travel Index Outlook 2025, released by the Global Business Travel Association, estimates that the country would move US$ 30.4 billion in the sector by 2025, behind economies like the United States, China, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, France, South Korea, India, and Italy.
This size makes the segment attractive, but also more difficult to operate. In large companies, corporate travel involves internal policy, cost centers, approval, information security, reimbursement, employee support, and negotiation with airlines and hotels.
In the case of banks, the barrier is even higher. Serving financial institutions requires certifications, technical control, and strict security standards.
For Voll, this requirement acts as a filter: those who can serve regulated clients gain a validation that is difficult to replicate.
The company markets itself as an artificial intelligence company applied to travel
The growth plan of Voll is not only based on selling tickets. The company has started to advocate the idea of being a company of artificial intelligence applied to corporate travel management, with agents capable of monitoring fares, identifying savings opportunities, and acting without relying on a team manually following each booking.
In 2025, the company launched three AI agents aimed at reducing costs. The model monitors flight and hotel prices in real-time to try to book or reissue cheaper options without altering the itinerary of those traveling for work.
Voll itself reported that between January and May 2026, its clients saved R$ 38.1 million on domestic air tickets using artificial intelligence in travel management. In the same period of 2025, the amount was R$ 4.8 million.
Another operational data shows the impact of this automation. In the first quarter of 2026, AirSave, one of the platform’s agents, monitored over 5,900 bookings and generated an average saving of 15.29% on the issued volume. Meanwhile, ExpenseHelper processed more than 12,000 receipts and identified 4,500 anomalies in the same period.
Even with AI, the operation still depends on people when the flight cancels or the hotel fails
The digital approach has not eliminated human service. Voll maintains about 250 travel agents available 24 hours a day, in 13 languages, to handle situations that an app cannot yet solve on its own.
This point is crucial in corporate tourism. A canceled flight, a hotel with overbooking, or a missed connection can compromise a meeting, a sale, or the safety of an employee on the move.
Moura often argues that the digital product improves control and reduces cost, but still does not replace the feeling of support in critical moments. The combination of software, data, and human service has become one of the foundations of the company’s positioning.
The goal now is to grow without losing control in a sector with pressured margins
The goal of reaching R$ 2.2 billion in revenue in 2026 depends on expansion among large corporations. This type of client generates volume but demands availability, security, auditing, and operational stability.
The company also attracted significant capital. Forbes reported in May 2026 that Voll received an investment of R$ 700 million led by Warburg Pincus, a move that marked a new phase of governance and technological expansion for the company.
The challenge is to grow in a sector affected by airfare, expensive accommodation, exchange rates, internal travel, and pressure to cut expenses. For large companies, the promise is simple: travel when necessary, spend less when there are alternatives, and keep the employee supported when something goes off-script.
The trajectory of Luiz Moura shows how an operational experience, starting with carrying bags in a hotel, became the foundation for a billion-dollar company in a market still not very visible to the general public. Do you think artificial intelligence will actually reduce corporate travel costs, or will human service continue to be the biggest differentiator? Leave your opinion in the comments.
