Ebay Inc. was the fastest growing company in 2007 for $75 million, though now StumbleUpon is sold for undisclosed fee
eBay now started to auction off ,well ironically, to the original owners. Skype could be next in line.
Stumbleupon, the personalized recommendation service, publically announced yesterday that the original founders had bought back the company with a billion dollar discount returning to its investor start-up.
This has happened just two years after Ebay Inc. purchased StumbleUpon on a very high ranking price. The fee was a massive $75 million dollars which many of the public could not think how this would fit into the e-commerce site, Ebay.Who would of thought we would be in this position today?
Thankfully for most, StumbleUpon has now acquired the backing of the original founders. Garrett Camp, whom now is CEO of StumbleUpon and Geoff Smith purchased the company from eBay, though they could not of funded this by themselves so have been helped by other investors including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Parteners and August Capital. 0
Garrett Camp, as CEO, quoted in his first official unveiling quoted:
“We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,”
“This change makes it possible for StumbleUpon to continue to innovate and focus on becoming the web’s largest recommendation service.” Camp said.
He also said in the official blog that,
“This will help StumbleUpon move quickly and stay true to its focus – helping people discover interesting web content. While there will be some internal changes at StumbleUpon, it will not impact the Stumbling experience and will help us create the best possible product.”
The company StumbleUpon was founded in 2001, bought for over $75 million by Ebay in May 2007. Now, the discovering and rating system has a base of over 7.4 million registered users. It also recieves over 20,000 advertisers who want to promote their websites on this heavy traffic site.
Chief Executive John Donahoe said himself that Ebay Inc. is not offering enough customer satisfaction and is not as competitive as it should be as one of the top e-commerce sites online as he saw shares rise and fall on the day that StumbleUpon was sold.
According to 3News, Ebay shares fell 39 cents, or 2.6 percent, to close at US$14.63 on Monday. Shares gained 25 cents to US$14.88 in after-hours electronic trade.
Ebay is a grossly mismanaged company with their head in their asses when it comes to customer service, policy, and what is important!!
Learned a lot from this post, thanks for sharing.
I admire the time and effort you put into your blog. I wish I had the same drive
Best thing that ever happen to stumble upon and skype!