Price comparison site Cheapflights has made a strategic investment in rival travel search service Momondo and parent company Skygate International.
Terms and scope of the deal have not been disclosed today, except that it is a 100% takeover of Momondo by Cheapflights, but the partnership signals a move to strengthen the Cheapflights business in markets it has so far not targeted such as Scandinavia and Russia.
The most immediate development as a result of the agreement will see the end of Cheapflights metasearch experiment Zugu, launched just over 12 months ago but failing to make any large inroads on established players such as Travelsupermarket or Skyscanner in the UK or Kayak, Bing and other US metasearch engines.
Momondo will continue to run as an independent business from its base in Denmark, but over time technology, data and advertising partnerships will be brought together to build what bosses are calling "a major global player in internet travel".
This, of course, isn't the first time Cheapflights has made a strategic investment in a metasearch company. It announced a partnership with Icelandic global flights planner Dohop in 2007, only for the agreement to end quietly around two years later.
Momondo has attracted varying degrees of attention in recent years, not necessarily because of success outside of its core markets in Northern Europe but because its technology is well respected, curiously amongst other metasearch players in the US.
Cheapflights chairman Hugo Burge says a deal with the five year old Momondo will "accelerate our ambitions" as it looks to build out in international presence beyond its core markets of the UK and US as well as country sites in Canada, Germany, Australia and New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain.
CEO Chris Cuddy adds that the company has "learned a lot" about metasearch in recent years and now respects how it can compliment its existing deals business.
"We are both pioneers and leaders in deals and metasearch," he adds. The two companies are also strong in different markets and will compliment one another during what will no doubt be aggressive plans for expansion.