I&'ve been writing about how impressed I am with travel site Hipmunk for a while now, and so have other bloggers. Now it sounds like the company has fans among venture capitalists too.
George Zachary, the Charles River Ventures partner who was an early investor in Twitter, declared today that Hipmunk and his portfolio company Wanderfly are a4Athe most innovative thing Ia4a4ve seen in travel.a4
Today&'s Launch conference in San Francisco was definitely a love fest for Hipmunk, which was demonstrating its iPhone app on-stage. Most of the judges (yes, the same judges who tore apart Appconomy and some of the other presenters) said that the company was their favorite presenter among the startups that demonstrated this afternoon. The idea of sorting flights by a4Aagonya4 rather than price is something that resonates.
Nonetheless, 500 Startups founder Dave McClure did ask the hard question about Hipmunka4a4s business &8212' couldna4a4t someone else just build a similar site Danilo Campos, who&'s in charge of Hipmunka4a4s mobile app, said that while a4Ait&'s easy to copy the results of a feature, I don&'t think it&'s easy to copy the intent.a4 At Hipmunk, unlike other travel services, Campos said the intent is a4Akindness.a4
As for the iPhone app, it looks like an impressive transfer of Hipmunka4a4s features to a smaller screen. My only quibble: It was a little confusing to see the company at a conference called Launch demonstrating a product that it actually launched yesterday.
Hipmunk recently raised $4.2 million in funding in a round led by Ignition Partners.
(Article updated to add Wanderfly, whose name I didn&'t catch during the conference.)
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Companies: Hipmunk
People: Dave McClure
Companies: Hipmunk
People: Dave McClure
Anthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining the site in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.
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