After redesigning its iPad app and consolidating the app with its iPhone cousin, travel search company Kayak is updating the UI for its web search portal today. The aim with the redesign is to create a more universal and comprehensive consumer experience across all Kayak platforms: web, mobile web and apps.
One of the biggest changes users will see is that there is considerable more white space on the search results page. Kayak is also using bold fonts less often. As co-founder and CTO, Paul English explains to us, the company studies what users are clicking on and realized that putting less information on the page would provide a better user experience for consumers. → Read More
Travel search engine Kayak has is announcing a new board member today—HomeAway Founder and CEO Brian Sharples. He joins fellow Kayak board members Michael Moritz, Joel Cutler, Terrell Jones, Hendrik Nelis, and Gregory Stanger
Sharples co-founded vacation rentals giant HomeAway in February 2005 and helped lead the company to a public offering in June 2011. Prior to HomeAway, he was president and chief executive officer of marketing and data research company IntelliQuest Information Group, helped complete two public offerings and the sale of Intelliquest.
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Kayak is announcing a major update to its iPad app today. The travel search giant has made its iPhone and iPad apps universal, adding a bunch of new features to the tablet version of the app.
The free app has gotten a huge UI makeover, with redesigned flight and hotel search, including an easier to use calendar. The app has been totally redesigned in terms of layout. Kayak has also added car rental search, the ability to integrate Kayak’s trip planning features, and a new autofill assistant helps you complete your purchase on airline and hotel web sites. → Read More
As AllThingsD reported in September, travel search engine Kayak has put its IPO on hold until market conditions improve. Kayak filed its S-1 for a public offering nearly a year ago. Today, the company just filed a new S-1 with its revenue numbers from the third quarter ended September 30, 2011.
During the most recent quarter, Kayak posted $61.16 million in revenue, up 28 percent from the same quarter in 2010. The company also increased revenue slightly from the second quarter 2011, which came in at $56.7 million.
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Most power airfare searchers know that buying two one-way tickets on separate airlines can sometimes be cheaper than buying a roundtrip ticket on the same airline. But on most travel search portals you have to do a little digging to find these one way fares, and sites like Kayak wouldn’t pair two one-way fares from different airlines. Today, Kayak is integrating these fares, which the company has dubbed ‘Hacker Fares’ into flight search.
So if you are looking weekend roundtrip flight from New York to San Francisco, and the best price is $600 for an economy ticket on Airline A, you’ll also see the price options for two one-way fares on Airline A and Airline B, which may be cheaper. Kayak calls these Hacker Fares because searching and matching separate airline and travel sites for these cheaper one-way fares requires a bit of hacking. → Read More
Bubble or not, 2011 may go down as the year of the tech IPO. Not since the last bubble have we seen so many technology companies clamoring to go public. And halfway through the year, we still have many more companies who will be listing on either the NASDAQ or the NYSE in the next six months. Here’s a roundup of the tech companies that have gone public, where they are trading now, and who we can expect to see ringing the bell next.
Professional social network LinkedIn probably had the biggest IPO in terms of hype this year because it was one of the first big social media companies to go public. After pricing its IPO at $45 per share on the New York Stock Exchange, LinkedIn began trading at $83.00 per share on May 19, giving the company a $7.8 billion market cap. In the first day of trading, shares popped up to as high as $122.70, soaring past a $10 billion valuation. → Read More
Late last year, travel search engine Kayak filed for an IPO, aiming to raise $50 million. The company just released a new version of its S-1 today, with updated financials. The company will list its stock on the NASDAQ under the symbol “KYAK.”
For the three months ending March 31 of this year, Kayak generated $53 million in revenue, which is up 43 percent from the same period in 2010. Net income for the quarter came in at $8.2 million representing 266 percent growth from the same period last year. → Read More
Launching today at the Demo Conference in Palm Springs is flyRuby, a platform that enables you to search, compare, and book private air charters online. There is something to be said for startups that identify successful services and business models and apply those to under-served niche markets. Through its website, flyRuby hopes to deliver a quick and efficient way to book private air charter that is comparable to the instantaneous search, booking, and competitive pricing of commercial airline sites, like Orbitz, Kayak and Expedia.
The project of founder and CEO Michael Leek, flyRuby owes its technology to CTO Dr. Stephen Smith, who, working in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University, developed the algorithms as part of a DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) research initiative to assist the U.S. Air Force. Operating in a similar manner to the technology behind commercial airline booking sites, flyRuby’s artificial intelligence instantly scans thousands of flight routes and seating charts for private flights across the country, finding available seating, and streamlining the booking process. → Read More
GroundLink — a New York City transportation technology and travel services business — released a new mobile app this week. The second iPhone app from the company, GroundLink allows users to book a hybrid, electric or otherwise clean-vehicle car, shuttle or limo to get around cities around the world.
Users can also opt to book a ride by lowest price, highest service rating or soonest and nearest available driver with the app. The company’s chief executive Alex Mashinsky noted:
“Over 5,000 of our [transportation] providers offer green vehicles – all forms, including hydrogen fleets in Los Angeles, even. It’s not all hybrids and electrics. Some countries have promoted natural gas vehicles…” → Read More
Travel search engine Kayak just filed an S-1 statement with the SEC for a proposed initial public offering. The company hopes to raise $50 million, according to the filing.
Here are some interesting stats included in the filing. For the nine months ended September 30, 2010, Kayak generated $128 million in revenues, growing by 48% from last year. For the third quarter ended September 30, Kayak generated $48 million in revenue, representing a growth of 80% from last year. Net Income was actually down for the first three quarters to $6.2 million from $10.4 million in 2009. → Read More
German travel search engine Swoodoo has been acquired by the leading U.S. flight search engine Kayak.
Although Kayak has lots of cash in the bank and is a major player in the US, it is still not well known in Europe, hence its need to make an incursion here. Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.
Swoodoo was founded in 2006 in Germany and since then has established its position as the self-proclaimed “market leader in online flight search in Germany” in a competitive market. → Read More
In preparation for the launch of the iPad tomorrow, iPad Apps are live in iTunes and we’re sorting through the best ones as fast as we can. But with more than 2,000 iPad apps in the App Store, the choices are already daunting.
To help you find the best apps at launch, we’ve put together the definitive list below. It includes all the iPad apps reviewed on TechCrunch, as well as other promising ones we have not gotten to yet. If you have a favorite you think should go on this list, tell us why in comments.
Here is our list, which we will keep updating through the launch of the iPad: → Read More
Discount travel site Kayak has launched a new version of its popular, free iPhone app. The new app, which is already in App Store, includes a trips management tool, an upgraded user interface and faster search.
New features and upgrades include a two-dimensional desktop-style navigation system, an enhanced flight, hotel and car search design including a new scrolling calendar, faster search and additional search options and filters. It basically comes one step closer to bringing the web experience of searching Kayak to the iPhone. The app also serves as an itinerary management service that consolidates flight, hotel, car rental, maps and other events into a single itinerary. Kayak’s paid app ($3.99) for flights on business or first class has also been updated with the trip management feature and improved search and UI. → Read More
DealBase.com, an online database devoted to aggregating hotel deals and packages, has secured $1 million in Series A funding from angel investors including Russ Siegelman, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Bob Zipp, managing director of Amicus Capital; and Josh Hannah, general partner at Matrix Partners and former CEO of eHow.com.
Launched in November 2008, DealBase crawls the web to create a database of hotel deals, special offers and packages, which currently number more than 22,000 deals, from over 3,500 sources, adding up to $4,660,093 in total savings on the site. The online travel industry is a competitive market chock full of sites that find consumer deals for travel, which makes the popularity contest incredibly tough. Expedia, Kayak, Travelzoo and others all offer packages and deals through their platforms and have a dedicated user base. → Read More
Event tickets are a big business and startup FanSnap is entering the game with a compelling ticket search engine. FanSnap is launching the public beta of its nifty Kayak-like live ticket search engine for sports, concerts, and theater events. FanSnap, through partnerships, provides free ticket search results for close to 60 of the leading ticket providers, including StubHub, eBay, Ace Tickets, AllShows.com, Barry’s Tickets,Gold Coast Tickets, Las Vegas Tickets, RazorGator and TicketNetwork. The results include more than 12 million tickets to 40,000 events.
FanSnap’s technology makes finding tickets to an event very simple. The site allows fans to see ticket selection and price ranges at-a-glance. FanSnap uses sliders to allow users to filter tickets by price range, date, time, number of tickets available, and by the series of the event (baseball homestand, a multi-night concert performance, or a week of Broadway shows). Users get a comprehensive list of comparable ticket offers from multiple providers. The search results also make it easy for users to see the full price of a ticket on a ticket vendor’s site, including all taxes, commissions, and fees that may come with a ticket. Similar to Kayak, when a user clicks on a desired ticket, he or she is taken to the vendor’s page. → Read More
Publicly traded travel site Travelzoo has launched the beta version of its new comprehensive airfare search engine, Fly.com. At first glance, Fly.com is a Kayak-look alike (except that Fly.com searches are limited to airfares only). The two sites offer virtually the same feature in searches, except that Fly.com’s price comparison sites are limited to Priceline and Hotwire, whereas Kayak offers comparison searches on Priceline, Hotwire, Expedia, Travelocity and Airfare.com → Read More
As Lehman Brothers sells off its assets following its bankruptcy, there is still a big question as to what will happen to its venture arm and, more importantly, how any change in ownership will affect the companies in which Lehman Brothers Venture Partners holds a stake. Like many investment banks, Lehman got into venture investing in the mid-1990s to try to capture some of those venture returns. The investment management group that it was a part of was sold off to Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman on Monday, but the venture arm was not part of that sale. Instead, Lehman Brothers Venture Partners is trying to spin itself off as a separate venture firm with about $800 million in assets.
But if it cannot do that, it will either go to hungry creditors or a financial buyer who may be more interested in liquidating the fund than in nurturing the startups in its portfolio. Those startups include Kayak, SearchMe, Jaxtr, Endeca, and about 80 more (A partial list from CrunchBase is below. Other than comScore, most are still private).. They could wake up tomorrow and find that they have a new shareholder who is even more impatient for a quick exit than its existing ones. It’s like being an orphan and wondering who your next foster parents will be. → Read More
After years of ceding the upper hand in online travel to booking sites like Kayak and Orbitz, American Airlines is about to fight back. According to the CEO of a competing travel site, American Airlines is about to pull its airline listings out of Kayak and is considering doing the same with Orbitz. If it does so, other airlines such as Continental and Northwest may follow suit. Airlines don’t like the booking sites because they have to pay them a referral fee for every ticket they sell, as opposed to capturing the full fare when travelers book on their individual sites. Even though that only amounts to a few dollars per ticket, every dollar counts to the troubled airlines—especially now with fuel prices going sky-high and the consumer spending going down. American Airlines has a particular beef with Kayak because it tends to show AA flights through its partnership with Orbitz instead of directly from American. That means American has to pay a double tax, once to Kayak and once to Orbitz. (The deal between Kayak and Orbitz, charges the competing CEO, was meant to drive up traffic numbers on Kayak as it was potentially seeking an IPO prior to raising $200 million instead last December). The decision to sever ties with Kayak supposedly has already been made. The only question is whether Orbitz can salvage its relationship with the airline. This should strengthen competing travel sites, especially newer ones that link directly to the airlines like Mobissimo and Yapta. CrunchBase Information Kayak Orbitz Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Connecticut startup Kayak has raised $223 million in venture capital and employs 58 people to build and grow its travel search site. Its chief competitor, San Francisco based Mobissimo, has raised $1 million and has just 15 employees. Mobissimo also became profitable last year, and the company doesn’t have to raise more money unless it’s to fuel faster growth or acquisitions. It’s also clear even from a cursory comparison of the two sites that Mobissimo is trying harder than Kayak to help you find exactly the flight and hotel you are looking for. Kayak is largely similar to other travel search sites – enter where you want to go and get back results from a number of providers, sort by price, etc. But Mobissimo has implemented a number of just plain smart features that provide the kind of travel options that you usually need a human operator or travel agent to get to. In addition to normal search results, for example, users also see options for the lowest priced non-stop fares, the lowest priced alternative dates, and the lowest priced business class fares (without doing new searches). And if there’s a train between the two destinations, Mobissimo will show those results along with the flights – you may get there faster and cheaper that way, and you’d never think to search for train schedules separately. And even better, the service will look for related destinations and show you the lowest fares there, too. For example, a search for flights to Poland may show other Eastern European destinations if the prices are a lot lower. Or if you are looking for flights to an airport near a beach, Mobissimo will show you other flights to other beach destinations, perhaps thousands of miles away (and skiing, and wine regions, etc.). It’s very hard to find these kinds of travel options with online searches. If you are flying to Warsaw, you just don’t think to do a search to Prague, too, to see if it’s vastly cheaper. And if all you want to do is find a quick getaway to gamble, play golf, drink wine, go to a beach or just about anything else, you can search primarily by activity, too. Mobissimo also has widgets on the site that pull in third party information about the destination. Weather, Flickr photos and (soon) travel guides are included in the left sidebar. All of this → Read More
Seattle based Farecast, a service that predicts and guarantees airline prices, has expanded its reach outside of the United States, with international coverage in key markets. Farecast, which launched in May 2006, tries to predict flight price changes for consumers so they know whether to buy now or wait. In late 2006 they added guarantees, effectively allowing consumers to buy insurance policies against price increases in the event they decide to wait. More recently, Farecast added hotel bookings as well. The site now offers predictions for over 200 markets between U.S. cities and Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean and Canada. According to USA Today, travelers can search for international trips up to two weeks long and six months out and Farecast will predict whether fares will go up, down or hold steady over the next week. The new extended service still has limitations, for example a search for San Francisco International (SFO) to London Heathrow (LHR) offers airfares, but doesn’t provide a prediction service despite LHR being a major gateway into Europe, where as SFO to Mexico City now does. Farecast can be used in a similar fashion to general travel sites such as Expedia as a general airfare and booking service; a search for Melbourne (MLB) to SFO gave similar results to the SFO-LHW search, although despite Farecast providing price comparison links to sites including Expedia, there was no price advantage at all over the other sites. Farecast operates in a highly competitive space, more so since Kayak acquired Sidestep in December. Farecast’s traffic has trended up over the long term, but it is still lagging in third place (see comScore chart below). CrunchBase Information Farecast Kayak SideStep Mobissimo Information provided by CrunchBase (thx to Mark Douglass for the tip) → Read More
