Farecast sold to unknown buyer at USD75 million value

A) The only source of news for this (at the moment) is the Seattle Post Intelligencer. They seem to have gotten it first hand but no more info.

B) The CEO, Hugh Crean , declined to comment on Sunday.

C) Speculations - echoed by Hotelmarketing.com - is that the "one natural choice would be Expedia"

Well that was it for any "news", so let's spin up the rumor mill:

1) Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity all would love to get their grubby hands on this web property, but I think USD 75million is cheap. The FareCast founders would demand a higher price for their scruples. So I do not think anyone of them managed to charm this fair maiden.

2) Right on the FareCast website in the About Us section: "We Support Suppliers... We are committed to supporting airlines and hotels. We strive to help our suppliers lower distribution costs and build customer value." So going with an OTA is like "going to the Dark Side."

I think there are only two suitors that FareCast would not mind dancing with:

Firstly, the Kayak/Sidestep merged entity that I blogged about here and here. Together, they would make a potent force. What Kayak/Sidestep missed in their offering is what FareCast has: an algorithm and data to PREDICT fares. What a ménage à trois this would be. There is no inherent conflict of philosophy (be nice to suppliers). The three together would be a powerful meta search engine indeed. Powerful enough to demand ... say.. USD 1.5billion or so from the second possible suitor..... I'll give you a hint:

"Don't be evil."

Yep, if it's not Kayak/Sidestep, then it may very well be Google. FareCast's prediction engine is quite attractive and perfectly in line with Google's overall direction to foretell or create the future. The religious belief of "Don't be evil" can easily tie in with "We Support Suppliers" and wouldn't Google want to work directly with suppliers too? And what start-up would not want to join Google's work force and enjoy all the benefits that are tailored to this Gen-Y workforce?

Lastly, there is a "dark horse" that may be involved here. Remember bezurk.com? Remember that they "received investment from and sold a minority stake to News Digital Media, the digital media arm of Australia-based News Limited." And News Limited belongs to...

... you guessed it...

News Corp. Rupert Murdoch is gettin' in the game people. He can't let Barry Diller have ALL the fun with the travel industry. This charming, genteel old man may be able to convince the fair maiden that he supports her naïve belief of "We support suppliers", as New Corp does not have stake in any OTAs. We will have to see...

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Well that was a bit of fun speculation. I would say 40% chance that it is Kayak/Sidestep, 30% chance that it is Google and 20% chance that it is News Corp. The balance 10% are OTAs and whatever other flotsam and jetsam (i.e. vulture venture capitalists) out there.