The story
Founded by Paul M. English in 2004.1
Kayak was founded in January 2004 by Steve Hafner and Paul M. English. Hafner previously co-founded Orbitz.
The company was originally named Travel Search Company, Inc. and the name was changed to Kayak Software Corporation in August 2004.
The website launched in February 2005.
In December 2007, Kayak raised $196 million in financing from a group of investors including General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Oak Investment Partners. Using that funding, Kayak acquired SideStep, another online travel agency.
On March 5, 2010, Kayak sold certain assets related to TravelPost.
In May 2010, Kayak acquired German travel search platform Swoodoo.
In January 2011, Kayak shut down SideStep and redirected SideStep traffic to Kayak.com.
In April 2011, Kayak acquired all of the outstanding shares of JaBo Vertrieb-und Entwicklung GmbH, or JaBo Software, operator Checkfelix, a travel search engine in Austria.
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On July 20, 2012, Kayak became a public company via an initial public offering. On its first day of trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol KYAK, Kayak opened at $26 per share and closed at $33.18 per share.
On May 21, 2013, Booking Holdings, then known as Priceline.com, acquired the company for $2.1 billion.
Post-acquisition
In September 2013, Kayak announced an office move to the Harbor Point district of Stamford, aided by a $2.5 million loan from the state of Connecticut.
In 2016 KAYAK launched voice search on Amazon Alexa.
After Booking Holdings acquired Momondo Group for $550 million, KAYAK added momondo and Cheapflights to its portfolio of brands in 2017.
In 2017, the company acquired Mundi, a Brazilian flight metasearch company.
In 2018, Kayak assumed leadership of Hotels Combined, which was acquired by parent company, Booking Holdings.
In 2024, Kayak added fares from Southwest Airlines to its listings.
Technology and Products
Kayak has developed several AI-powered features for travel planning. In 2016, the company launched a voice search skill for Amazon Alexa. In 2024, Kayak added price checking and AI-powered recommendations tools to its platform.
In early 2023, Kayak released a plug-in for ChatGPT, allowing users to search for flights and hotels through the chatbot. In April 2025, Kayak launched Kayak AI as a beta tool offering real-time travel information in a chat-based interface. The company later integrated AI Mode into its main platform in October 2026, enabling users to search and book travel through conversational queries.
From Wikipedia’s article on Kayak (company), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4