July 7, 2015
Willkie represents Insight Venture Partners, Hotel Urbano’s major institutional shareholder, in the deal, which includes an investment in Hotel Urbano by the Priceline Group.
On July 6, The Priceline Group, the world leader in online travel and related services, and Hotel Urbano, one of Brazil's largest and fastest growing online travel companies, announced that the two companies have entered into a strategic partnership consisting of a commercial agreement and a minority investment by The Priceline Group. Willkie represented Insight Venture partners, Hotel Urbano’s major institutional shareholder, in the deal.
Under the partnership, The Priceline Group will provide Hotel Urbano access to accommodations outside of Latin America from its global network of over 680,000 accommodations partners to Hotel Urbano. Additionally, The Priceline Group has made a $60 million investment in exchange for a minority interest in Hotel Urbano. The partnership will provide consumers in Brazil and Latin America access to more choices in accommodations around the world through The Priceline Group's network. Hotel Urbano will use Booking.com to power its non-LATAM retail hotels product on an exclusive basis, and The Priceline Group will also be the preferred provider for Hotel Urbano's global packages.
The Priceline Group provides services in over 200 countries through six primary brands - Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, rentalcars.com and OpenTable. Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Hotel Urbano has more than 8,000 direct Brazilian hotel partners on the platform and a large audience of Brazilian consumers. Insight Venture Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries.
In recent weeks, Willkie represented Insight in its acquisition in Fourth and in its investments in Checkmarx, Conga and Virgin Pulse. The current deal was handled by partners Gordon Caplan and Rosalind Fahey Kruse, special counsel Jonathan Konoff and associates Andrew Prodromos and Amir Ghavi.
