Concur Buys Hipmunk to Bring Consumer Tools to Its Business Travelers
Skift Take
Six years after brashly boasting about how it would disrupt travel search, Hipmunk, which had to compete against larger players with more ample war chests, is exiting into the business travel portfolio of Concur. Hipmunk's turn toward business travel may make it more of a business-to-business play than its current consumer incarnation. As Concur's TripIt example shows, it remains to be seen how innovative Hipmunk can be given larger corporate priorities within SAP/Concur.
Concur, the corporate travel giant, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the consumer flight- and hotel-metasearch site Hipmunk. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Hipmunk, which was founded in 2010 and had raised some $55 million in funding, is known for its Agony search, which sorts flight and hotel options by how stressful they are to users, but the company had a tough time breaking through to compete against larger players such as Priceline's Kayak, TripAdvisor and Expedia's Trivago.
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Tim MacDonald, Concur's executive vice president of travel, told Skift Tuesday afternoon that Concur, which is owned by SAP, will keep the Hipmunk consumer brand going and hopes to improve Concur's value proposition for frequent business travelers through learnings from Hipmunk. The approximately 50-plus strong Hipmunk team in San Francisco will stay on after the acquisition, which is expected to close in October, he said.
In a statement, Adam Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of Hipmunk, said, "Six years ago, our vision was to take the agony out of travel
