Travel tech firm Mondee to move HQ to Texas

Another Bay Area corporate headquarters will soon fly the coop, with travel tech firm Mondee heading to Texas.

Shareholders of Ithax Acquisition Corp. approved a merger with Mondee, which will move its headquarters from San Mateo to Austin, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The combined companies plan to trade on the Nasdaq as Mondee Holdings Inc. with the ticker symbol MOND. It’s not clear when the company will launch the stock or move its hub.

A spokesperson for Mondeee said the publicly owned firm is still based in California, but its home page lists an Austin address with a San Mateo phone number. The company disclosed its headquarters move in regulatory filings before the merger.

It now ranks as the 11th largest public company headquartered in the Austin area, based on 2021 revenue, according to the Austin Business Journal.

Mondee had projected gaining nearly $292 million from its merger deal, but ended up with little because investors in the special purpose acquisition company asked for refunds on 97 percent of shares sold in an initial public offering in early 2021.

Instead, it will get about $77 million in funds from the merger, mostly because of a $70 million private placement.

Mondee, founded in 2011, provides software for “gig travel agents” — independent workers who help consumers book travel – and employs more than 1,000 people at 17 offices in the U.S. and Canada, with operations in India, Thailand, and Ireland.

Tech companies during the pandemic have led the Bay Area in shifting to remote work, with dozens of companies downsizing, closing or moving their corporate offices. Companies such as Block, Old Navy, Tesla, TaskRabbit and Zoom either left the state or closed altogether.

— Dana Bartholomew

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