List of acquisitions by Facebook
Encyclopedia
Facebook
is a social networking company. Each acquisition is for the respective company in its entirety, unless otherwise specified. The acquisition
date listed is the date of the agreement between Facebook and the subject of the acquisition. The value of each acquisition is listed in US dollars because Facebook is headquartered in the United States
. If the Facebook service that is derived from the acquired company is known, then it is also listed here.
Facebook has acquired 10 companies with its largest acquisition being the purchase of FriendFeed
. It also purchased the defunct company ConnectU in a court settlement and acquired intellectual property formerly held by rival Friendster
. The majority of the companies acquired by Facebook are based in the United States, and in turn, a large percentage of these companies are based in or around the San Francisco Bay Area
. Facebook has also made investments in LuckyCal and Wildfire Interactive.
Most of Facebook's acquisitions have been 'talent acquisitions
' and acquired products are often shut-down. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
has stated that "We have not once bought a company for the company. We buy companies to get excellent people... In order to have a really entrepreneurial culture one of the key things is to make sure we're recruiting the best people. One of the ways to do this is to focus on acquiring great companies with great founders."
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
is a social networking company. Each acquisition is for the respective company in its entirety, unless otherwise specified. The acquisition
Takeover
In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company by another . In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to the acquisition of a private company.- Friendly takeovers :Before a bidder makes an offer for another...
date listed is the date of the agreement between Facebook and the subject of the acquisition. The value of each acquisition is listed in US dollars because Facebook is headquartered in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. If the Facebook service that is derived from the acquired company is known, then it is also listed here.
Facebook has acquired 10 companies with its largest acquisition being the purchase of FriendFeed
FriendFeed
FriendFeed is a real-time feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates, as well as any other type of RSS/ Atom feed...
. It also purchased the defunct company ConnectU in a court settlement and acquired intellectual property formerly held by rival Friendster
Friendster
Friendster is a social gaming site that is based in Malaysia, KL. The company now operates mainly from the three Asian countries namely in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore....
. The majority of the companies acquired by Facebook are based in the United States, and in turn, a large percentage of these companies are based in or around the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
. Facebook has also made investments in LuckyCal and Wildfire Interactive.
Most of Facebook's acquisitions have been 'talent acquisitions
Acqui-hire
The term Acqui-hire is used to refer to those Mergers and acquisitions in which the chief target of the acquisition is not the company or the product, but the people building the product....
' and acquired products are often shut-down. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...
has stated that "We have not once bought a company for the company. We buy companies to get excellent people... In order to have a really entrepreneurial culture one of the key things is to make sure we're recruiting the best people. One of the ways to do this is to focus on acquiring great companies with great founders."
Acquisitions
Acquisition date | Company | Business | Location | Value (USD United States dollar The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies.... ) |
Related to | Used as / Integrated with | Talent acquired | References |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
facebook.com domain name | AboutFace AboutFace AboutFace is a Canadian registered charity founded in 1985. AboutFace is the only Canadian charity dedicated to providing support and programs to individuals with facial disfiguration, and their families.... |
Boston Boston Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had... |
$200,000 | — | name change from Thefacebook.com | — | ||
Parakey Parakey Parakey is a Web-based computer user interface proposed by Firefox contributors Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. Ross describes it as "a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do." The idea behind it is to make image, video, and writing transfer to the web easier... |
Offline applications/Web OS Web operating system In metacomputing, WebOS and Web operating system are terms that describe network services for Internet scale distributed computing, as in the WebOS Project at UC Berkeley, and the WOS Project... |
Mountain View, CA Mountain View, California -Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south... |
Y Combinator Y Combinator Y Combinator is an American seed-stage startup funding firm, started in March 2005. Y Combinator provides seed money, advice, and connections at two 3-month programs per year... , Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital is a Californian venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. The Wall Street Journal has called Sequoia Capital "one of the highest-caliber venture firms", and noted that it is "one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture-capital firms"... |
Facebook Mobile | Blake Ross Blake Ross Blake Aaron Ross is an American software developer who is known for his work on the Mozilla web browser; in particular, he started the Mozilla Firefox project with Dave Hyatt, as well as the Spread Firefox project with Asa Dotzler while working as a contractor at the Mozilla Foundation... , Joe Hewitt Joe Hewitt (programmer) Joe Hewitt is a software programmer who is best known for his work on the Firefox web browser and related software development tools like Firebug and DOM Inspector.... |
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ConnectU ConnectU ConnectU was a social networking website launched on May 21, 2004 that was founded by Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra in December 2002. Users could add people as friends, send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about... |
Social networking | Cambridge, MA Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent... |
$31m | i2Hub | (Court settlement) | None | ||
FriendFeed FriendFeed FriendFeed is a real-time feed aggregator that consolidates the updates from social media and social networking websites, social bookmarking websites, blogs and micro-blogging updates, as well as any other type of RSS/ Atom feed... |
Social networking aggregator Social network aggregation Social network aggregation is the process of collecting content from multiple social network services, such as MySpace or Facebook. The task is often performed by a social network aggregator, which pulls together information into a single location, or helps a user consolidate multiple social... |
Mountain View, CA Mountain View, California -Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south... |
$47.5m | Benchmark Capital Benchmark Capital Benchmark Capital is a venture capital firm responsible for the early stage funding of some very successful startups. In 1997, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay, which became worth more than $5 billion by the spring of 1999. Other high-profile investments include Ariba, Juniper Networks, Red... , ex-Google |
Paul Buchheit Paul Buchheit Paul Buchheit is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He was the creator and lead developer of Gmail. He developed the original prototype of Google AdSense as part of his work on Gmail. He also suggested the company's now-famous motto "Don't be evil" in a 2000 meeting on company values... , Bret Taylor Bret Taylor Bret Taylor is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He was the co-creator of Google Maps and the Google Maps API. Taylor left Google in June 2007 to join venture capital firm Benchmark Capital as an entrepreneur-in-residence, where he and Jim Norris, another former Google employee,... , Jim Norris, Sanjeev Singh, 8 others |
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Octazen | Contact importer | Taman Melawati Taman Melawati Taman Melawati is a self-contained town in Kuala Lumpur on its north-eastern border with Selangor. It is administered by the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council . The town's postcode is 53100, which falls under the jurisdiction of Kuala Lumpur. It was dubbed the Hollywood of Malaysia due to many local... , Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million... |
Friend Finder | 2 engineers (remote workers) | ||||
Divvyshot | Photo management Photo sharing Photo sharing is the publishing or transfer of a user's digital photos online, thus enabling the user to share them with others . This function is provided through both websites and applications that facilitate the upload and display of images... |
San Francisco | Y Combinator Y Combinator Y Combinator is an American seed-stage startup funding firm, started in March 2005. Y Combinator provides seed money, advice, and connections at two 3-month programs per year... , AngelList |
Facebook Photos | Sam Odio, Paul Carduner | |||
Friendster Friendster Friendster is a social gaming site that is based in Malaysia, KL. The company now operates mainly from the three Asian countries namely in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.... Patents |
Intellectual property Intellectual property Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law... /Patents |
Mountain View, CA Mountain View, California -Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south... / Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million... |
$40m | None | ||||
ShareGrove | Private conversations Internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived... /Forums Internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived... |
San Mateo, CA | Elm Street Ventures | Facebook Groups | Kent Libbey, Adam Wolff | |||
Nextstop | Travel recommendations Guide book A guide book is a book for tourists or travelers that provides details about a geographic location, tourist destination, or itinerary. It is the written equivalent of a tour guide... |
San Francisco | $2.5m | ex-Google | Charles Lin, Carl Sjogreen, Adrian Graham | |||
Chai Labs | Internet applications Software as a Service Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common... |
Mountain View, CA Mountain View, California -Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south... |
$10m | Merus Capital, ex-Google | Gokul Rajaram, Giri Rajaram, others | |||
Hot Potato | Check-ins/Status updates Microblogging Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size... |
Brooklyn Brooklyn Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated... |
~10m | RRE Ventures RRE Ventures RRE Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on investments across several disciplines, including software, internet, mobile, financial services, environmental, and other related technologies, primarily within the United States, and especially in and around New York... |
Facebook Places | Saadiq Rodgers-King, Justin Shaffer, 6 others | ||
Drop.io Drop.io Drop.io was an online file sharing service. It allowed users to quickly create "drops", which could contain files of any type, and could be accessed via the internet, e-mail, phone, fax, and widgets. The service did not require users to sign up for an account, and each drop was private unless the... |
File hosting and sharing File sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways... |
Dumbo, Brooklyn DUMBO, Brooklyn Dumbo, an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It encompasses two sections: one located between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, which connect Brooklyn to Manhattan across the East River, and another that continues... |
~10m | RRE Ventures | Sam Lessin | |||
FB.com domain name | American Farm Bureau Federation American Farm Bureau Federation The American Farm Bureau Federation , commonly referred to as the Farm Bureau, is a nonprofit organization and the largest general farm organization in the United States... |
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution.... |
$8.5m | — | — | — | ||
Rel8tion | Mobile advertising | Seattle | undisclosed | Peter Wilson | ||||
Beluga | Group messaging | Palo Alto, CA Palo Alto, California Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is... |
undisclosed | Facebook Messenger | Jonathan Perlow, Lucy Zhang, Ben Davenport | |||
Snaptu | Mobile App Developer | Israel Israel The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea... |
$60–70m | Mobile | ||||
DayTum | Information graphics Information graphics Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education... |
SoHo SoHo SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores... , New York City New York City New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and... |
Nicholas Felton, Ryan Case | |||||
Sofa | Software design Software design Software design is a process of problem solving and planning for a software solution. After the purpose and specifications of software are determined, software developers will design or employ designers to develop a plan for a solution... |
Amsterdam Amsterdam Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population... |
Koen Bok, Jasper Hauser | |||||
Mail Rank | Email Prioritization | Newyork | Bryan O’Sullivan and Bethanye McKinney Blount |
See also
- List of acquisitions by Google
- List of acquisitions by Yahoo!
- List of companies acquired by Microsoft Corporation
- Mergers and acquisitionsMergers and acquisitionsMergers and acquisitions refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling, dividing and combining of different companies and similar entities that can help an enterprise grow rapidly in its sector or location of origin, or a new field or...