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Perhaps. But in that case it's a much smaller market than I imagined. Also relevant is that ITA raised $100M in 2006, so their $700M exit is hardly a home run b
by gruseom 16y ago
Perhaps. But in that case it's a much smaller market than I imagined. Also relevant is that ITA raised $100M in 2006, so their $700M exit is hardly a home run by VC standards. It doesn't seem to match the astonishingly strong technical and market position you (convincingly) describe.
http://www.itasoftware.com/news-events/press-release.html?id=103 http://www.itasoftware.com/news-events/press-release.html?id.... Note that the round included Sequoia who are known for caring only about big markets.
- jsnell 16y agoITA raised all that money to build a reservation system to replace the old mainframe systems that are fabulously expensive to run. That would have been a market of the kind that required outside investement from a company that was already profitable (I think ITA had more people working on the reservation system than the search), and that a big VC would love to bet on. From what I hear it worked technically, but failed commercially due to the badly timed recession. It seems like a fair bet that Google's offer wasn't putting a lot of value on the reservation system. Even if it could be made to work, it's not the kind of a business that Google is usually in.