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.
Of course, considering Sharples’ experience in online travel space as well as taking a technology company public, the appointment makes sense. Kayak has been eyeing a public offering for over a year now, filing its S-1 in 2010. As AllThingsD reported in September, the company put its IPO on hold until market conditions improved.
In a recent S-1 filing, the company revealed that revenue and profits are up. Kayak posted $61.16 million in revenue in Q3, 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. Net income for the third quarter 2011 was $12.7 million, up 44 percent from the same quarter in 2010, in which net income was $8.7 million. Profits were up from $5.7 million in the second quarter of 2011.
One obstacle that could stunt Kayak’s growth is Google’s entry in the space with it its flight bookings and search portal. But clearly by adding Sharples to the board, Kayak could be getting more serious about a 2012 public offering.