TripIt sells to Concur for $82M cash and stock

Trip management service TripIt is being sold to Concur in a deal worth up to $120 million after an initial outlay of $82 million in cash and stock.

The deal was announced in the US this morning and sees a healthy return for the company founded in just October 2006.

Terms of the acquisition state that travel and expense management firm Concur will pay “cash, stock and unvested restricted stock units” immediately, with “additional consideration over time that could bring the total value to $120 million”.

The split is $27 million in cash and another $44 million in Concur stock. The deal is expect to close in Concur’s fiscal year 2011 second quarter.

Concur chairman and CEO Steve Singh says the deal illustrates a “universal need to bring order to the chaos of travel”, with Concur’s travel management services and TripIt’s itinerary management uniting to “solve the challenges along the entire business travel process”.

TripIt has won plenty of plaudits in recent years for its method of trip planning by allowing technology to collate and manage trips on behalf of the user.

But the company took off in a major way as more consumers tapped into the smartphone movement. It now has popular mobile apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

The company has a two-tier service – free on the one hand for limited user functionality, and TripIt Pro for the full suite of services.

TripIt co-founder and president, Gregg Brockway, says:

“This is great news for the millions of travelers who trust TripIt as a better way to manage travel and the hundreds of third party developers who are a part of the TripIt API ecosystem. Together with Concur, we can move even faster to realize our vision of making travel easier for even more people and companies around the world.

“It’s also a testament to the passion, hard work, and commitment to excellence the entire TripIt team has demonstrated since day one to be the best at solving tough travel problems to help improve the lives of travelers everywhere.”

Funding rounds for Tripit have taken place regularly, with an initial $1 million in 2007, $5.1 million in 2008 and a further $7 million in April 2010.

How TripIt will integrate with Concur’s technology is as yet unknown, and to what extent.

But the big prize for companies like TripIt, Traxo and TripCase is to build a ubuiquitious itinerary that is held separately to the booking service - an opportunity outlined in an article in September 2009.