No, KAYAK is not an Indian company; it is an American meta-search engine for travel services. It was founded in 2004 by Steve Hafner and Paul M. English and is currently headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, USA. While it has a massive presence in the Indian market and maintains a localized website and app (kayak.co.in) to serve Indian travelers, it operates as part of Booking Holdings Inc., the same parent conglomerate that owns brands like Booking.com, Priceline, and Agoda. KAYAK functions by "scraping" or searching hundreds of other travel sites (including Indian carriers like IndiGo and Air India) to show users a comparison of prices. It doesn't actually sell tickets itself but acts as a middleman that redirects users to the airline or an Online Travel Agency (OTA) to complete the purchase. In the 2026 travel landscape, KAYAK remains one of the "Big Three" meta-search tools globally, alongside Google Flights and Skyscanner, but its corporate roots and ownership remain firmly based in the United States.