Kayak Reviews - Kayak.com is a travel metasearch engine operated by the Kayak Software Corporation. The company also provides related services and operates KAYAK.co.uk, checkfelix.com, and swoodoo.com.
Cofounders of Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz formed KAYAK in 2004.
The company was originally incorporated in Delaware in 2004 under the name Travel Search Company, Inc. The name was later changed to Kayak Software Corporation in August 2004.
In December 2007, KAYAK raised $196 million in a new round of financing from a group of investors, including General Catalyst Partners, Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Oak Investment Partners. Using that funding, KAYAK acquired SideStep, a competing US travel website.
On March 5, 2010, KAYAK sold certain assets related to the website www.travelpost.com and its travel information business to The New Travelco, Inc., a Delaware corporation, which subsequently changed its name to Travelpost, Inc.
In May 2010, the swoodoo brand, a leading travel search platform in Germany, was acquired.
In November 2010, KAYAK filed its S-1 with the SEC aiming to raise $50 million in an IPO on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
In January 2011, KAYAK closed down SideStep and redirected SideStep traffic to KAYAK.com.
In March 2011, KAYAK began providing results in the U.S. version of Bing from multiple cities, airports and airlines in Bing's travel search section.
In April 2011, KAYAK acquired all of the outstanding shares of JaBo Vertrieb-und Entwicklung GmbH, or JaBo Software. JaBo Software operates checkfelix.com, a leading travel metasearch website in Austria.
In July 2012 the company announced it would expand into Russia.
On July 20, 2012 Kayak officially went public, trading under the name KYAK. On it's first day of trading, Kayak opened up at $26/ - higher than originally expected and closed at $33.18/share.
Cofounders
KAYAK was founded in 2004 by Steve Hafner and Paul M. English. Hafner currently serves as KAYAK’s chief executive officer, and English, the chief technology officer. Before KAYAK, Hafner helped found Orbitz in November 1999 and led its business development, advertising sales, marketing, and product marketing activities. Prior to his tenure at Orbitz, Hafner worked as a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, where he was part of the project team that led the development of Project T2, which eventually became Orbitz. Hafner received a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Prior to co-founding KAYAK, English co-founded Boston Light Software, a small business ecommerce platform that was sold to Intuit where he served as vice president of technology. English is noted in the press as having a passion for customer feedback as he launched www.gethuman.com to provide consumers tips on dealing with customer service phone systems. English is also a Director at Boston-based Partners-In-Health and Village Health Works, and is an advisor to JoinAfrica, FanSnap, Roost, LinkedIn, and Pixable. English holds a BS and MS in computer science from University of Massachusetts.
