By Chris Ciaccia

Shares of travel software company Kayak Software (KYAK) raced over the rocks and through recently troubled IPO waters in their first day of trading on Friday.

The online travel firm which pulls data from priceline (PCLN), Expedia (EXPE) and others, priced its IPO at $26 a share Thursday night, above the expected range of $22 to $25.

The opening trade was $30.30, good for a gain of 16.5%. Kayak is trading on the Nasdaq ($COMPX) under the ticker symbol "KYAK."

Kayak sold 3.5 million shares in the offering. Last week, Kayak announced the initial pricing range, as it moved along with its IPO. It had previously been delayed for variety of reasons, including market conditions, and the perceived issues surrounding Facebook's (FB) IPO.

In the three months ended March 31, Kayak had $73.3 million in revenue, earning 17 cents a share. That was up from the same quarter in 2011, when it reported $52.7 million in revenue, but lost $1.33 a share.

Shares of Kayak closed on Friday at $33.48, a gain of 28.77% above the IPO price, as more than 8.7 million shares changed hands.

Interested in more on priceline? See TheStreet Ratings' report card for this stock. Check out our new tech blog, Tech Trends. 

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