Redmond, WA-based Concur (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CNQR]]), a specialist in software that helps big companies control travel expenses, revealed today that it’s acquiring TripIt, a four-year-old San Francisco startup providing a virtual travel-assistant service for business travelers.
TripIt’s free service allows travelers to create master itineraries that they can access from the Web or their mobile phones simply by forwarding their travel-confirmation e-mails to TripIt’s servers. A premium version, for $49 per year, adds features such as flight-refund notices when fares drop and automated alerts about flight delays or cancellations. [Update, 1/14/10: We’ve published a separate Q&A with TripIt CEO Gregg Brockway detailing the startup’s services and its history.]
Concur executives say they were drawn to TripIt by its record of rapid growth—the startup has attracted at least two million users since its 2006 launch (the company hasn’t released exact numbers). They add that bringing the company inside will make traveling easier for Concur’s existing clients, while also helping the company reach customers in what Concur president and chief operating officer Raj Singh calls the “unmanaged travel services” sector.
“When you think about a company that started from scratch four years ago and now has millions of travelers taking advantage of its service who, from all reports, swear by the service and love it, there is a lot to admire,” Singh says. “It’s an innovative company with an innovative culture.”
It’s also providing an enviable return its investors. The startup had raised just under $13 million in three rounds of funding that included San Francisco-based Azure Capital Partners, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, European Founders Fund, and other investors. Concur said it will pay $82 million up front in cash and stock, plus up to $38 million in additional payments over the next 30 months, depending on the performance of Concur’s stock.
“It’s phenomenal,” Azure Capital partner Mike Kwatinetz says of the exit. In fact, Kwatinetz says Azure—which provided the lion’s share of TripIt’s $7 million Series C round in March 2010—will earn an even larger multiple on its investment in TripIt than it did in 2008 when eBay bought Azure portfolio company Bill Me Later. (Azure was the largest investor in Bill Me Later and was reported to have earned an 8x return on the $945 million deal.)
“TripIt is a phenomenal company,” Kwatinetz says. “We would have loved to take it much further—it’s a great management team with a great franchise. But it was hard to pass this up.”
TripIt CEO Gregg Brockway said today the Concur acquisition won’t change TripIt’s focus (or its location: the company plans to stay, and grow, in San Francisco). TripIt will continue to offer both free and premium services to individual travelers, while at the same time
