As the Rich Barton-led TravelPost struggles to reincarnate itself, Kayak is not a disinterested observer -- Kayak owns a piece of TravelPost.
Kayak's registration statements indicate that Kayak sold TravelPost on March 5, 2010, to The New Travelco for $3.6 million in cash and also received 800,000 shares of The New Travelco common stock.
The transaction was reported at the time, but the terms were unknown.
The New Travelco also assumed an unspecified amount of Kayak's debt obligations, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with Kayak's proposed initial public offering.
Two Kayak board members, Joel Cutler of General Catalyst Partners, and Greg Slyngstad, who was TravelPost CEO until a shakeup in early January, are TravelPost stockholders.
The New Travelco later changed its name to TravelPost and purchased Web content, software, customer data, domain names and trademark applications from Kayak.
Kayak had acquired TravelPost in late 2007 as part of Kayak's purchase of SideStep, which owned TravelPost at the time.
The New Travelco had raised $9.8 million in its initial funding round last year from 25 investors.
It isn't known what percentage of TravelPost Kayak owns with its 800,000 shares.
As part of Kayak's sale of TravelPost to The New Travelco, Kayak receives a monthly license fee of $50,000 for TravelPost's right to display hotel reviews and other hotel-related information over three years.
Kayak's registration documents also shed some light on Kayak's purchase of German metasearch site Swoodoo on May 6, 2010.
Of the Swoodoo acquisition, Kayak explains: "In May 2010, in an effort to expand our European operations, we acquired all of the outstanding stated share capital of swoodoo in exchange for $9.5 million and 825,000 shares of our common stock. Upon the occurrence of certain events, including the closing of this offering, during the 30 business days following our giving notice of such event we will be obligated, at a holder’s request, to repurchase any or all of the shares owned by such holder at a price of €13.33 per share. As of September 30, 2010, we recorded a liability of $3.4 million with respect to these repurchase obligations."