Feed

Acquisitions

By Nitasha Tiku 4/10/12 9:40am

Acquisitions

6917067560_5e4146cf32

Sorry, But the Lesson of Instagram Is Not: Teach Yourself to Code and You, Too, Can Get $400 M.

The impulse to draw inspiration and meaning from a face-melting deal like Facebook’s $1 billion bid for Instagram is only human. Otherwise, you’re out at sea, drowning in headlines about how a 28-year-old made $400 million yesterday, a two-year-old photo app is worth more than The New York Times, and how investors doubled their money overnight.

Everything you know about the creation of wealth torn asunder–all thanks to a service you helped promote. The impulsive backlash was enough to compel Courtney Boyd Meyers to remind everyone that for-profit companies are not your friends.

Thus, it comes as little surprise that the stickiest story about Instagram this morning, judging by our Twitter feed, is a post on The Next Web about how CEO Kevin Systrom was once a lowly marketer who taught himself to code at night. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 4/09/12 1:28pm

Acquisitions

Cheers, Mr. Systrom!

Facebook Acquires Instagram For $1 B. Just Days After a $50 M. Investment From Sequoia, Thrive, and Greylock [UPDATED]

Things sure do happen fast when you’re wicked popular. On Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg just announced that his social network has agreed to acquire the photo-sharing darling Instagram, adding that “their talented team will be joining Facebook.” In a press release, Facebook says the deal was for a jaw-decimating $1 billion “in a combination of cash and shares of Facebook.”

The news follows a whirlwind week for the clubby favorite. After launching on Android last Tuesday,  the startup picked up an additional million users (it already had 30 million iPhone users) in 12 hours. That kicked off rumors via AllThingsD on Friday that Sequoia was close to investing $50 million for a Series B round that valued the startup at $500 million, which TechCrunch just confirmed. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 8:49am

Acquisitions

Screen shot 2012-03-19 at 9.33.06 AM

Pivotal Labs Purchased by EMC: ‘Same Pivotal, Increased Velocity’

Last week, Om Malik broke the news that Pivotal Labs, which is based in San Francisco but has an outpost in Union Square, was in talks to be acquired by a major technology company. At the time, a source told Betabeat that Pivotal had been contemplating a sale for years. “The thinking behind this move, is to scale pivotal to Sapient levels of huge,” another source familiar with Pivotal told Betabeat.

Well, late Friday, GigaOm got the exclusive: EMC Corporation, a publicly-traded Fortune 500 company that helps IT departments “accelerate the journey to cloud computing,” bought Pivotal Labs, the agile development pioneer known for its work with Twitter. (Startups bring in their tech team, who get paired with staffers called “Pivots,” who teach them agile development while working together on their product.) Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 3/16/12 10:00am

Acquisitions

First Prize?

Was Posterous a ‘Consolation Prize’ When Twitter Really Wanted to Buy Tumblr?

When the news broke this Monday that Twitter was acquiring Posterous, the reaction among the tech blogs was a rather muffled meh. Posterous, the microblogging platform that was pitted again Tumblr as soon as it game out of the gate, simply never got much traction. The platform’s founder, Garry Tan moved on to a more promising role as designer-in-residence and now venture partner at Y Combinator.

But what if Twitter had purchased Tumblr instead?

According to Gawker’s Ryan Tate, that’s exactly what Twitter was hoping for. His characterization of a partnership between two companies that hemorrhage cash? “The millenium’s worst merger,” beating out Time Warner-AOL’s “worst deal of the century.” As Mr. Tate writes: Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 3/15/12 11:45am

Acquisitions

Pivotal NYC (via foursquare/connellmcgill)

Sources Say Pivotal Labs Has Been Contemplating a Sale For Years, Wants To Scale to ‘Sapient-Levels of Huge’

Update: Pivotal Labs was acquired by EMC Corporation.

Late Monday night, Om Malik, GigaOm’s top (and only, as far as we know) Om, broke the news that Pivotal Labs was in talks to be acquired.  The San Francisco-based company, which Mr. Malik described as “one of the smartest Web consulting firms, known for its pioneering work in agile development,” he said, is “in talks to be acquired” by a large technology company.

Pivotal currently has offices in San Francisco, Boulder, and, of course, its beloved local outpost in Union Square, which frequently hosts Skillshare classes and, until recently TechStars NYC. Pivotal has an interesting business model. It helps technical teams from clients like Groupon, TaskRabbit, and even Best Buy and the Associated Press by working in tandem with Pivotal staffers. After a few months, they leave with progress on their product and training in agile development so they can do it all over again.

“The thinking behind this move,” a source familiar with the company told Betabeat, “is to scale pivotal to Sapient levels of huge,” adding that Pivotal SF was up for sale. (Sapient is a publicly-traded interactive services agency.)

Another source familiar with the company, who also requested anonymity, mentioned Sapient randomly as well. The source said he had talked to former VP of technology Ian McFarland about selling Pivotal numerous times “through the years.” Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 2/22/12 4:20pm

Acquisitions

Rapportive Linkedin

Rapportive Admits It Was Acquired By LinkedIn, But Will Keep Its Gmail Plugin

Welcome to today’s edition of news you already knew! On its staff blog, Rapportive confirmed that oh yeah, it actually has been acquired by LinkedIn . . . just like AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes reported 15 days ago.

For those of you who’ve been stumbling around your inbox blind, Rapportive is an incredibly handy browser plug-in (it only works with Gmail right now) that shows you information about the person you’re emailing with–like their photo, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook–right from your inbox. Back in September, CEO Rahul Vohra said Rapportive was being viewed by 65 million contacts per month.

Today Mr. Vohra offered a bit of temporary relief for Rapportive’s loyal fan base (Betabeat was enthusiastically introduced last year by a friend who shares our love of knowing more than everyone else whenever possible). “We have fantastic news: at LinkedIn, we will support Rapportive, and we will continue to build beautiful products that make you brilliant with people.”

That might dispel “acqui-hire” rumors, but we all know what happens to nimble products under big company umbrellas. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 2/20/12 4:06pm

Acquisitions

casacanda

Fab Goes Euro Flash: Acquires Casacanda and Relaunches It as Fab.de In Germany, Austria, And Switzerland

Another month, another milestone for master pivoter Jason Goldberg and his go-go daily deals for design startup, Fab. Today, the company announced that it has acquired Casacanda, a Berlin-based flash sales company. Along with the acquisition, Casacanda will relaunch as as Fab.de, serving Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Last November ccTLDInvestors, “the online magazine for global domain investors” noted that a company called Sedo made a tidy profit by selling Fab.de for $50,000. That same week, Fab also purchased Fab.eu for 35,000 Euros, so expect more updates for Fab’s fabulous European adventure.

According to Mr. Goldberg, Casacanda has been on something of a roll. The site has 250,000 members and grew by 90,000 in just the last 30 days. Add that to Fab’s existing membership, and the company has won over more than 2.3 million users in the past 8 months. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 2/20/12 6:00am

Acquisitions

Mr. Cooper. (jordancooper.wordpress.com)

They Did It All for the Data: Groupon Buys Hyperpublic

Hyperpublic, the two-year-old startup helmed by Lerer Ventures partner Jordan Cooper, has been acquired by Groupon for an undisclosed price.

On Friday, Mr. Cooper teased the news with a few ellipses on Twitter before linking to the announcement. “Today is an INSANE day! We are so proud to announce that Hyperpublic has been acquired by the rocket ship that is Groupon,” Hyperpublic wrote. “This is a huge win for our team, our investors, and everyone who contributed to our company over the past two years.” Then there was a party at The Standard, natch. Read More