The story
Hotwire was launched in 2000, by Karl Peterson, Eric Grosse, Gregg Brockway, and Spencer Rascoff. Initial funding came by founding partner Texas Pacific Group (TPG), a leading private equity firm that Karl Peterson used to work for, that invested an initial $75 million into Hotwire. Hotwire first offered tickets from six major airlines, that also invested into Hotwire's launch: American, Northwest (now Delta), Continental (now United), America West (now American), United, and US Airways (now American). Prior to its formal launch, Hotwire was codenamed Purple Demon.
In September 2003, IAC/InterActiveCorp, which had acquired Expedia in 2001, announced its acquisition of Hotwire.com for $663 million. In 2004, an internet research firm estimated that through cross-advertising between Hotwire and Expedia, IAC was able to reach a total of an additional 1.5 million unique visitors to both websites monthly.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hotwire.com, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4