Kayak Files for $50 million IPO

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/17/travel-search-engine-kayak-files-for-50-million-ipo

by ojbyrne • 16 years ago

83 28 16 years ago

jedc• 16 years ago

Interesting. I've played around with Kayak's API, but has anyone used it for any projects? I'm curious what others think.

As for the IPO... good luck to them!

louislouis• 16 years ago

Looks like a flop.

wyclif• 16 years ago

The article implies that Kayak may have had privileged information about the Justice Department's investigation of the Google-ITA deal, or else they would have held off on the IPO. Now there's a story I'd like to read.

dlokshin• 16 years ago

TC article keeps referring to revenue and net income as compared to a year ago which was a notoriously bad year for the travel industry. So these growth numbers don't really mean anything. Would be really interesting to see where Kayak stands in comparison to 2007 & 08.

keenans• 16 years ago

Kayak's S1 filing has a lot of interesting nuggets of information. The data you're after is on page 29:

2007 Revenues / Net Income: $48M / ($4.36M) 2008 Revenues / Net Income: $112M / $5.1M

Keep in mind they acquired SideStep at the end of 07.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1312928/0001193125102...

krschultz• 16 years ago

I didn't realize that the Kayak founders have a member from basically every other major competitor. I would love to hear that story.

ojbyrne• 16 years ago

I think if you look at any large website in the travel space, that holds true, it seems to be an especially incestuous industry. When I worked at Tripadvisor (owned by Expedia) we had significant numbers of people in our group from Travelocity.

docgnome• 16 years ago

Odd. I wonder why that is. I suppose it has to do with gaining the knowledge to work in the space. Once you do, it's probably easier to find a job with other companies in the same space.

smackfu• 16 years ago

Interesting how much money they get from other travel booking agencies. These are basically referrals of referrals.

thushan2• 16 years ago

Does anyone know of any other solutions for this kind of data other than ITA? Are there any open/cheap APIs for getting at scheduling/price data? I hear Hipmunk is using Orbitz currently to power their results (or so someone said on that recent TechCrunch article in the comments). Does Orbitz have some API? Would be a fun data set to play with if one is openly available, though I love what Hipmunk is already doing.

mrduncan• 16 years ago

Kayak has an api (limited to 1000 searches / day): http://www.kayak.com/labs/api/search/

I believe that Orbitz will require you talk to someone in order to get access to their api.

thushan2• 16 years ago

Thanks for that info. That's a great start for what I'm looking for.

tomhoward• 16 years ago

The lack of open/cheap APIs is probably the biggest factor that keeps innovation in travel so slow.

My company, Adioso (YC W09) has a free API in beta. It's what's used to power http://destmapper.com/. Coverage is limited but soon to start expanding rapidly. Email me - tom at adioso dotcom - if you're interested.

ThomPete• 16 years ago

You should check out Everbread http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/03/23/stealth-travel-search-en...

A really really impressive piece of technology.

gms• 16 years ago

While Orbitz might offer an API, I believe that underneath the hood they also use ITA. ITA currently have no competitors in this space.

aberkowitz• 16 years ago

Luckily for them, flight search is such a small [1] industry.

[1] orbitz, chapoair, hipmunk, expedia, travelocity, farecompare, cheaptickets, hotwire, priceline, kinkaa, zoombu, cheapflights, etc

jfarmer2• 16 years ago

Funny enough, these sites (including Kayak) are pushing users away from flight booking and towards hotel booking because the margins are much larger.

kayak.com defaults to hotel search now, for example.

khuyi• 16 years ago

While the major guys move towards hotel booking, startups are tackling a lot of different problems in travel. This feels like perfect time for kayak to be raising money to compete. More here http://khuyi.tumblr.com/post/1592395981/online-travel-ripe-f...

jojopotato• 16 years ago

Careful, they default to whatever search you ran last :)

rorrr3• 16 years ago

I'm surprised it's valued that low. We constantly hear about all kinds of shitty sites getting millions in funding.

theoneill• 16 years ago

50m is not the valuation; it's the amount of stock they're selling.

rorrr3• 16 years ago

How is that different from the valuation?

abalashov• 16 years ago

Revenue? What's the profit?

borism• 16 years ago

"Net Income was actually down for the first three quarters to $6.2 million from $10.4 million in 2009."

Kayak Files for $50 million IPO

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