New York Gets Billion Dollar Exit With Tumblr

Tumblr, Yahoo, David Karp, Marissa Mayer, Acquisition, Exit

Tumblr founder David Karp onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 (photo: K. Sandler for Thedroidguy.com)

This was the big startup news all weekend. At the end of last week, rumors started bubbling up via AllthingsD suggesting that Yahoo, and it’s new powerhouse CEO Marissa Mayer was looking for their biggest startup acquisition to date. That startup was Tumblr.

Last week we started hearing that Yahoo was prepared to buy Tumblr for $1 billion dollars. Many tech and startup pundits suggested that Facebook may try and jump in and swallow up Tumblr before the Yahoo board could get together Sunday and vote on the acquisition. Facebook reportedly, never made an offer.

In case you’ve been living out in the wilderness without internet access, Tumblr is a microblogging platform. They have over 100 million monthly visitors and see over 90 million posts made per day.  Unlike the 140 character restriction on Twitter, people posting to Tumblr can write longer formatted posts and include pictures, videos etc.

Coincidentally Tumblr, and it’s founder David Karp, were the subjects of my most widely read story ever in my career is a “blogger”. Tumblr is just that popular.

Karp has been swatting off offers to buy Tumblr almost since it’s inception. Celebrities like Lady Gaga and others, flocked to Tumblr to add to their social media strategies. In fact GaGa actually posts on her own Tumblr, whereas her Facebook page is updated by a social media team.

The Wall Street Journal, and several other credible sources, have said that Yahoo’s board approved a $1.1 billion dollar acquisition of Tumblr. Many sources speculate that Mayer, a 13 year veteran of Google, hopes that Tumblr will be Yahoo’s YouTube.  It’s also been reported that, for now, Tumblr will operate as it’s own business unit, and continue to be based in New York.

There are no solid revenue numbers for Tumblr reported online. What has been reported is that the startup, that was founded in Karp’s mom’s small New York apartment in 2007, has raised $125 million in venture capital and at one point Karp sold 25% of the company for$750,000. It’s unclear how much Karp still owns today.

Karp, along with girlfriend Rachel Eakley, a grad student and chef, lived in a modest west village apartment until last year when they moved into a $1.6 million dollar loft in West Brooklyn. Karp dropped out of high school, finishing up his education on his own and then moved to Japan where he coded for a living.

There’s no official word of how long Karp will remain with the company.

New York even has a ping pong startup!

EEBOTHDiscount

Yahoo’s First Mayer Acquisition, New York Startup Stamped

Stamped,New York startup,Yahoo,Marissa Mayer,Startup,Startups,acquisition,xooglerLast April we brought you the profile of New York startup Stamped. Stamped, which is made up of a team of 11 with five being Xooglers, created a recommendation platform that allowed users to put their “stamp of approval” on their favorite places and things.

Stamped offers a unique value proposition by having a quick, easy to understand way of providing recommendations without having to read 1500 word reviews. It’s the recommendation platform for those on the go.

Stamped marks the first Yahoo acquisition under the leadership of new CEO Marissa Mayer who took over the helm at Yahoo six weeks ago after a thirteen year stint at Google.

Prior to this announced acquisition, Stamped had already attracted the attention and investment from Bain Capital Ventures and Google Ventures. Their first round of funding was $1.5 million dollars.  They also have rockstar advisors like Instagram founder Kevin Systrom and food personality Mario Batail.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Mayer made it clear that acquisitions were part of Yahoo’s strategy going forward, in her first quarterly earnings call earlier this week. Several tech and startup focused sites have been speculating on some of the other possible target startups in Mayers cross hairs.

On Tuesday we brought you the story about the hot and heavy rumor that Yahoo may be looking to acquire Baltimore mobile ad startup Millennial Media. 

Like Millennial Media, Stamped is a natural fit for Yahoo who hasn’t had a good review product, much less a mobile product for reviews. Mayer also said that mobile was one of the key focuses for Yahoo going forward as well.

Yahoo Senior Vice President Adam Cahan told the Associated Press that Stamped would be “a great asset as we expand Yahoo’s mobile efforts and build a world-class mobile development organization.”

Stamped issued a statement on their website today that said:

“We’re excited to start work again on something big, mobile, and new — but we can’t discuss the details just yet. And we’re really stoked to be able to hire lots of talented engineers and designers for this new project.”

Linkage:

Stamped is here

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CEO Remorse? After Firing Mollie Spillman On Vacation Is Marissa Mayer Eyeing Baltimore Startup Millennial Media?

The 37 year old fireball we’ve all come to know and love, Marissa Mayer, has been hard at work in her new role as CEO of Yahoo. During that time she’s mandated free smartphones for her staffers, made meals free, hired a new CFO and even had a baby of her own with just a few weeks maternity leave. Mayer knows that Yahoo’s share holders are looking for a big change and quick. So far she seems to be delivering.

The next thing Mayer and the Yahoo team have to do is lock down solid revenue streams.

It appears that Mayer is going to attack revenue from all angles and focus on the angles that she knows the best. A new version of the Yahoo home screen recently leaked out that showed a higher profile for search. For those that didn’t know Mayer had a long tenured history at Google.

She also seems to be honing in on Yahoo’s content properties and cutting away other under performing properties.

Mayer’s also focusing heavily on mobile a place she knows well from her Google days. Yahoo held their first quarterly conference call under Mayer, Monday afternoon. During that call Mayer spoke about her plan to focus the company’s efforts on mobile. At one point in Yahoo’s long dot com history the page, with their silly tv commercials, was a destination of browsers everywhere to find just about anything in a portal design moreso than a straight search engine.

In the early days of Google, Yahoo search was actually powered by their Mountain View rival. A time Mayer knows all too well from the other side of the fence.

Mayer is hoping to make Yahoo and it’s many apps a go to destination on mobile devices. Once their mobile product line is beefed up they are going to need a better monetization strategy than they currently have in place.

Mollie Spilman,Millennial Media, Yahoo, Mayer,Marissa Mayer, Baltimore Startup,Startup,Startups,startup acquisitionTo that end, this past weekend Business Insider reported that Mayer may have her eye on Baltimore mobile ad startup giant Millennial Media.

 Millennial Media was created by a group of former advertising.com and Verizon Wireless employees and is led today by co-founder and CEO Paul Palmeri who was integral part of the creation of Verizon Wireless’ v-cast service.  With their engagement and developer centric mobile ad strategy Millennial Media quickly rose to prominence as the second largest mobile ad company in the world, eclipsing even Apple. Google is of course at the top, and by all accounts they are not for sale.

Millennial Media went public back in March. They debuted at $13 and quickly shot up to $25 with a high on opening day of $27.90. Unlike many of the tech companies and “startups” that went public this year, Millennial Media trades on a day to day basis, very close to where they debuted at, closing yesterday at $14.25.

All around it’s a solid company and a solid acquisition candidate for Yahoo.

Of course no one at Yahoo or Millennial Media is speaking about this however Yahoo could truly benefit from having the second largest mobile ad network behind Google in their stable.

There’s also a huge connection between Yahoo and Millennial Media. Millennial Media’s Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer is Mollie Spilman. You may remember Spilman’s name as the CMO from Yahoo that was fired by Mayer while she was on her vacation. Perhaps there isn’t such bad blood between Mayer after all.

Linkage:

Millennial Media

Source: SAI

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Holy Google’s Marissa Mayer Is Moving To Yahoo As CEO

As many of our loyal readers know, we don’t typically report on Silicon Valley news, unless it’s say as big as Facebook acquiring Instagram for $1 billion dollars, or Google’s Marissa Mayer getting the nod as CEO at Yahoo. Mayer replaces a disgraced Scott Thompson who was fired when it was discovered he did not possess a computer science degree that was on his resume and subsequently reported in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

This is a significant accomplishment for an incredible woman who I’ve personally met on two occasions and have seen speak on more than a handful of occasions. Mayer was the first woman engineer at Google. She led Google’s search team for years before pivoting to lead Google’s maps team. She is one of the few, female or male, people that can withstand a Mike Arrington beating in the hotseat and still not give up any information.

It’s clear that Mayer has the strength, knowledge and expertise to go head first into straightening out the mess that was left in the wake of Thompson. This includes an erroneous patent battle Thompson put Yahoo in with Facebook. Google has been on both sides of similar patent situations.


Mayer is also a visionary and a respected leader in Silicon Valley. Yahoo co-founder David Filo (who still works at the company) said in a statement:

“Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting strategists in technology development.  I look forward to working with her to enhance Yahoo’s product offerings for our over 700 million unique monthly visitors.”

Mayer said, “I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users.  I look forward to working with the Company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.”

“The Board of Directors unanimously agreed that Marissa’s unparalleled track record in technology, design, and product execution makes her the right leader for Yahoo! at this time of enormous opportunity,” said Fred Amoroso, Chairman of the Board of Directors.

While some may find it odd that Mayer is leaving Google for the CEO position, at what was once one of Google’s key competitors, it was actually a Facebook executive, Sheryl Sandberg who summed up Google’s internal philosophy on moves like this. While giving a commencement address at Harvard Sandberg told a story about her interview with then CEO of Google Eric Schmidt. After showing Schmidt a spreadsheet declaring that the position she was up for at Google matched none of her job criteria Schmidt told her “don’t be an idiot” “Get on a rocket ship”.  The same holds true for this opportunity for Mayer, which direction that rocket ship is going is still unclear though.

Source: SAI