Sojern: Two Federal Loans, About Half of Staff Cut

Category: travel advertising technology
Pandemic-layoff role: Deepest-cut ranking company
Last updated: 2026-11-01

In the archive

Article: How 41 Companies Handled Pandemic Layoffs

Founders, executives and investors

Sojern has worked with travel brands since 2007, according to its own description. Mark Rabe was chief executive in 2013, when the company raised $10 million in a Series C round led by Triangle Peak Partners. Its existing investors, Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, Focus Ventures and Industry Ventures, all took part. Sojern named Curtis Atkisson, a former United Airlines finance executive, as chief financial officer at the same time.

Business before the pandemic

Sojern sells performance-based advertising to travel companies, built, in the words of Triangle Peak's president, on "their very large amounts of data." In its 2013 release it described a "Sojern Traveler Platform" built on machine learning and real-time bidding for ad space, and said it had more than 500 travel customers, among them American Airlines, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, United and Las Vegas Tourism. Deloitte's 2013 Fast 500 list, the release said, had ranked it the fastest-growing travel technology company, with revenue up 3,811 percent between 2008 and 2012. It opened a London office for Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2013, alongside offices in New York and Omaha.

By April 2020 Sojern had 13 offices across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, Adweek reported.

What the pandemic did to the business

In March 2020, according to a report Adweek cited, travel advertising "fell by as much as 90%." Adweek also wrote that Adara, another travel ad-tech company, had begun notifying inventory partners of "an abrupt scaling back of media buys."

Sojern's customer offers that year began before the virus. In January 2020 it said it served "10,000 customers in more than 140 countries" and began offering its hotel marketing as a subscription; a commission version already existed. In February it offered attractions a subscription package, pitched as an alternative "to the high commission rates charged by online travel agencies."

On May 13, 2020, Sojern opened its COVID-19 travel dashboard, updated daily and indexed to pre-COVID search and booking levels. It offered "free and unlimited access to the public," a service it said it had "only ever provided to customers and partners." It gave the reason as "the unforeseen popularity our unique travel dataset has generated."

In October 2020 Sojern took its co-op program, in which a destination marketing organization combines its marketing budget with local hotels and attractions, to Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, "to support market recovery together." A company blog post that month said destination marketing organizations were "cut off from crucial funding" and that "small DMOs, attractions, and hotels can participate and maximize funds with Sojern's matching funds program." The matching predated the pandemic: the program's September 2019 launch release offered "Flexible fund-matching or discounted media packages for all co-op participants." None of these releases says what the matching cost Sojern.

In August 2021 Sojern published a report for which Worldwide Business Research (WBR) Insights surveyed 300 travel marketers; 87 percent "tightened spending on brand campaigns and increased spending on performance campaigns in 2020." Chief revenue officer Noreen Henry said "travel is coming back and it's a great time to take part in that recovery." Sojern's About page in October 2020 described what it sells as "branding and performance marketing solutions."

Pandemic-relief role: two federal loans

On April 10, 2020, Omaha-based Core Bank approved a Paycheck Protection Program loan of $6,718,790 to Sojern, Inc., according to SBA's loan-level data. The borrower's address, 18135 Burke St in Elkhorn, Nebraska, is the street address Sojern gave the SEC in 2023. SBA's data list the current approved amount as $6,215,262, all of it for payroll, and record 337 jobs reported on the loan. They record $6,287,082.81 forgiven on June 11, 2021.

Sojern also borrowed through the Federal Reserve's Main Street Lending Program. On July 20, 2020, Union Bank and Trust Company of Lincoln, Nebraska, made Sojern Inc. of San Francisco a $25,000,000 loan under the Main Street New Loan Facility, at 3.19 percent and due July 20, 2025. The facility bought a $23,750,000 participation on August 7, 2020; the Fed's disclosure lists a $250,000 transaction fee paid to it (Federal Reserve, Main Street Lending Program transaction-specific disclosures).

Layoffs

Adweek reported on April 3, 2020, citing multiple sources, that Sojern had laid off about half of its roughly 600 employees; the company confirmed layoffs but not how many, and Layoffs.fyi listed the cut as 300 employees, 50 percent. How Sojern handled layoffs →

Public money for travel ads

Some of Sojern's customers pay with tax money. The Williamsburg Tourism Council in Virginia spends a dedicated state sales tax, the Historic Triangle Marketing Fund, which the law says may be used "solely for the purposes of marketing, advertising, and promoting the Historic Triangle area as an overnight tourism destination." Its annual reports to the Virginia General Assembly list payments to "Sojern, Inc" made through its advertising agency, Connelly Partners: $39,349.39 for December 2021 digital media, $73,440.00 for February 2022 media, and $55,000.00 billed on August 31, 2024 for "2024 Q3/4 Digital Media."

After the first shock

Sojern's September 2022 release for its 15th year claimed "more than 10,000" hotel, destination and attraction clients a year and said it had "weathered many storms," among them "the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic." Neither that release nor a February 2023 release announcing senior hires "at a time when many technology companies face market challenges" mentions the 2020 layoffs or the PPP loan. Mark Rabe was chief executive in October 2020 and in February 2023.

Sojern's SEC record consists of Regulation D notices of private offerings, with no filing between a December 2013 Form D and a July 2023 Form D. The July 21, 2023 notice reports an equity sale marked as a business combination, first sale July 1, 2023, with $9,842,000 sold to 34 investors; an amendment filed five days later restated the amount as $4,078,546. Sojern announced its acquisition of VenueLytics on July 11, 2023; the filing does not name a target.

Since 2025

RateGain Travel Technologies completed its acquisition of Sojern on November 6, 2025, according to RateGain's announcement. As of June 2026, Sojern's website carried the banner "Adara joins Sojern to build the future of travel marketing."

Sojern