Articles tagged “room 77”

Like Hipmunk, Room 77 had an innovative product and talented team but ran into a buzz saw: the marketing clout of Google preferencing its own products, and Expedia, Booking.com and Kayak. Don't feel sorry for the venture capital firms receiving just 53 cents on the dollar. That's the game they play. The real losers are the angel investor and employees, although we're sure for many it was quite a ride nonetheless.

With Lola's acquisition of Room 77's metasearch tech, Room 77 essentially becomes a consumer insights and hotel search test lab for Lola. Room 77's original founders have essentially exited the business: Google licensed its tech and hired the bulk of its employees, Expedia acquired Room 77's pioneering room-view tech, TrustYou bought Room 77's Checkmate hotel-messaging app, and now Lola picked up the remaining technology.

We don't know the terms of the transaction. Still, messaging, mobile and review analytics all make for a nice concoction and the two companies will likely be better for the mixture.

In an age where almost anything can be on-demand and every hotel company says it wants to personalize and customize hotel guest experience, why is it still so hard for us to get the exact room we want to stay in?

Will Google be the comeback kid in travel after under-whelming the competition over the last couple of years? Google is slowly -- very slowly -- getting its act together as it tries to get its figurative hand in virtually everything.

Competing against the likes of Priceline's Kayak, Expedia's Trivago and even Google will be very tough going for Room 77. Is Room 77 giving up on the challenge or playing possum while it hones its mobile skills?

The global travel industry is going through a lot of disruption, and the biggest sectors include the sharing economy and ground transportation, as well as one large potential winner in the hotel booking sector.

How long will it be before we talk about travel websites as always having an essential, if limited place, in much the same way that we sometimes talk about print guidebooks? Smartphones with bigger screens, tablets of mini and maximum dimensions ... buckle your seatbelts.

Altimeter Capital's new venture capital fund won't be exclusively devoted to travel startups, but expect to see it making news along the lines of Concur's larger Perfect Trip Fund, which indeed concentrates on travel.

Ask anyone who the most successful investor in travel is, and they'll talk about Joel Cutler of General Catalyst Partners. But, when it comes to individual investors, this gang of five has a lot of experience and is pretty good. None are infallible, of course, but this is where a lot of the smart money is.