Kayak IPO maiden flight: Will it take off? Live updates
Skift Take
The whole world -- the travel tech world, that is -- is watching as Kayak takes its shot on the first day of going public. The market will have its say and make its ultimate verdict over the long term.
The wait is over: Some 20 months after filing its IPO registration statement and years of speculation about an IPO before that, Kayak's stock debuted this morning on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Earlier, Kayak sold 3.5 million shares at $26 each and raised $91 million in net proceeds for general corporate purposes, new product introductions and acquisitions, Bloomberg reports.
The company has 44 million outstanding shares, priced at $26 per share.
The float, as it is known, is relatively small with just 3.5 million shares, and existing shareholders are not selling.
7:45 p.m.
[caption id="attachment_9933" align="alignright" width="385"] Sequoia Capital strutted its own stuff with these glam shots of Kayak co-founders Paul English (left) and Steve Hafner on a bell-ringing day for an IPO.[/caption]
Button-down venture capital firms aren't exactly known for their flamboyancy, but Sequoia Capital, which invested in Kayak in early 2005, about a year after its founding, chose today to showcase Kayak's founders in black-and-white on the Sequoia website.
4 p.m. At the end of an historic day for Kayak, its stock closes at $33.18, up 27.62%. Priced at $26, it had reached a high of $35 at one point.
The Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia vets who got the travel search company off the ground in 2004 have come a long way from here.
3:43 p.m. At this moment, Yahoo Finance indicates that 70% of Nasdaq stocks had declined on the day and 26%, including KYAK, advanced. And, 4% were unchanged.
3:16 p.m. Will Kayak's stock stay strong over the next hour or so in the final hour of trading? Morgan Stanley, which doubled as banker for the th
