Hipmunk operates a metasearch travel service across web and mobile, emphasizing a unique visual user experience to make travel planning fast and easy. The product aggregates flights, hotels, trains and charter flights and surfaces vacation rentals via partnerships with providers like Airbnb and HomeAway. Hipmunk supports comprehensive multi-platform integration and offers apps on the App Store and Google Play. The company recently announced a partnership with Yelp that makes Hipmunk the hotel provider enabling Yelp users to book tens of thousands of U.S. hotels. Nokia Growth Partners highlighted Hipmunk's cross-platform capabilities and cited CEO Adam Goldstein as capable of driving the company toward market leadership. The articles do not disclose revenue or user metrics. Hipmunk is a travel search startup that presents flights and hotels using a visual grid and proprietary ranking metrics—'agony' for flights and 'ecstasy' for hotels. Founded in 2010 by Adam Goldstein and CTO Steve Huffman and incubated by Y Combinator, it expanded from flights to hotel search and later added inventory via partnerships with airlines, travel agencies, Airbnb and Homeaway. Hotels have become the company's priority because they are more lucrative, and Hipmunk reports mobile hotel bookings up 6x year-over-year and says the hotel business is "growing like a rocketship." Recent product improvements include same-day hotel booking and enhanced cross-platform functionality that lets users start a search on one device and finish on another. The company plans to add car rentals and other verticals while continuing to refine its flight and hotel experiences to reduce friction. Financially, Hipmunk has raised a total of $40 million after the latest $20 million Series C, providing capital to accelerate product and partnerships. Hipmunk offers a travel search product that lays out flights in a grid to make comparisons easier and helps users sort results to minimize “agony” from long or multi‑stop trips. Since launching in 2010 it has released iPhone and Android apps and recently added hotel search and calendar integration. The company is focused on building a more complete product than competitors and plans major product announcements in the coming months. CEO and co‑founder Adam Goldstein says the new funding will be used to hire across engineering, business development, and marketing. Management has said Hipmunk will not expand outside of travel for now. Financially, Hipmunk has raised about $20 million to date following this round. Hipmunk builds an airfare-search product designed to surface great airfare and direct users to airline purchase pages. The startup links directly to airlines and notably secured a deal with ITA for its search results. Hipmunk has also secured American Airlines as a partner, enabling direct bookings. The team includes former Reddit personnel — Christopher Slowe joined and Reddit co‑founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian are working on Hipmunk. The company previously took a small seed from Y Combinator in mid‑2010. Hipmunk has been pursuing additional funding to expand and disrupt the airline travel industry. Hipmunk is a new Y Combinator-backed travel startup that initially focused on flights. The company closed a hyper-competitive angel financing of around $1 million. Named investors include SV Angel, Paul Buchheit, Ashton Kutcher (via A‑Grade Investments), Matt Mullenweg, Sam Altman, Geoff Ralston, and others. Aside from SV Angel, few of the usual super angels participated in the round. Reporters noted the valuation rose during the competitive process, but Hipmunk declined to disclose the exact figure. The startup will use the proceeds to expand beyond its four-person team and begin rolling out additional travel services beyond flights.

Total raised

$40M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series C

Latest activity

May 2014