US-based Kayak.com, a website that aggregates airline, hotel and rental car deals, has filed for an IPO to raise as much as $50 million. Kayak's listing comes after MakeMyTrip.com which listed in August.
Kayak, started in 2004 by co-founders of other travel websites such as Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity, is backed by investors like Sequoia Capital, Accel Funds, General Catalyst Partners, and Oak Investment Partners. The investors plan to sell shares in the IPO.
Kayak has not revealed the pricing or the number of shares it plans to sell in the IPO.
MakeMyTrip had listed in Nasdaq in August at $14 a share, which had risen to $40-plus. Following the second quarter results, that showed a loss of $1.8 million, MakeMyTrip shares had crashed 26%.
iXigo.com, which aggregates travel deals in India and refers users to carrier sites or third party travel portals, operates in the same space as Kayak, but in the Indian market. iXigo is funded by BAF Spectrum, a Singapore-based seed-investment fund.
While consumers use Kayak.com for free, the company earns revenue from referrals to travel suppliers and online travel agents as well as from advertising.
Kayak said profit for first nine months of 2010 fell 41%t from a year earlier to $6.16 million, while revenue increased 48% to $128.3 million. The number of user queries in the nine-month period rose 37% to more than 469 million.
The company licenses search software from ITA Software Inc and said it may need to find a new provider if Google Inc completes its proposed $700 million takeover of ITA. Kayak and other online travel companies are asking the US Department of Justice to challenge the merger.
As of October 31, Kayak had 140 employees and local websites in 15 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Italy and Spain.
Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc are arranging the IPO, Kayak said.
