Microsoft Acquires Farecast For $115 Million & Integrating It Into MSN Travel

“We’re excited to confirm that Farecast has been acquired by Microsoft! This acquisition creates tremendous opportunities for the Farecast team and our customers. We look forward to sharing more details in the weeks to come. On behalf of the Farecast team, thank you.”
-Hugh Crean, President/CEO of Farecast [via Farecost Blog]

Farecast, the flight comparsion search engine was just acquired by Microsoft for $115 million. Farecast is also based in Seattle, a city near Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash. headquarters. The amount that Farecast was acquired for was $115 million. MSN Travel and Farecast often partnered before the acquisition.

Before the acquisition, Farecast raised $32.7 million in funding. Farecast is a competitor of Kayak.com, a company funded by Sequoia Capital.

How did the software conglomerate convince Farecast that it’s time to be acquired? My guess is that Steve Ballmer walked into a room with Crean and gave the following pitch:
“In a sense, the bedrock of Microsoft has been… now it’s travelers… but the bedrock of Microsoft had been… getting after developers to extend our platform… because I think it’s all about the developers, developers, developers… but not anymore, baby!! It’s travelers, travelers, travelers!!!”

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=HTkA9L2J2gY[/youtube]

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