There’s a good chance you’ve seen quite a few commercials with the “Trivago Guy” with the wry sense of humor. For the most part, that marketing strategy has worked. And here we are today, with investors on the edge of buying a piece of Trivago’s upcoming initial public offering. The origins of the company, though, may be a surprise to many.
Trivago got its start in Germany back in 2004 as a hotel search engine. About eight years later, Expedia Inc bought a 62% stake in the company for $531 million. Trivago is now one of the dominant online travel operators in the world. Over the past 12 months ending last September, the company logged 1.4 billion visits to its websites and apps and these translated into a hefty 487 million qualified referrals.
The company not only has a database of 1.3 million hotels across 190 countries, but there is also a sophisticated machine learning/analytics system. This next-generation technology has allowed the company to improve personalization.
