About.me, the personal profile page startup founded by Tony Conrad and acquired days after its public launch by AOL back in 2010, is going it alone again. The move was announced on about.me’s blog:
Twenty-four months and several million about.me pages later, we continue our commitment to building the best personal identity service on the web. During the past two years, we’ve been thankful for the tremendous resources and support of our friends and partners at AOL.
Today, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be spinning about.me back out, returning to life as an independent company that is financially backed by our management team and a truly amazing group of investors who have backed companies such as WordPress and Google. Our team will remain the same for the most part, and we’ll continue our roles as co-founders.
Conrad said the decision to spin out from AOL was not down to any sort of disagreement or any sort of “classic” culture clash between the big corporate entity and the creative upstart startup. Rather he said AOL’s acquisition strategy is “very focused on media” and there just weren’t the product integration opportunities that had originally been envisaged. (Only yesterday rumours surfaced that AOL is looking to buy consumer electronics site Gdgt.)
Conrad told TechCrunch: “Our experience at AOL has actually been great. That’s genuine. They’ve been really supportive of us — we’ve hired, our team has doubled in size. They’ve given us a lot of air cover, a lot of support… [But] the reality is AOL is very focused on media. When we sold about.me part of the thesis was that we’d be able to be integrated into mail, we’d be integrated into AIM… And there really hasn’t been integration opportunities.
“We’re a big cost centre to AOL. I don’t think that serves their purposes well if they don’t see the long term integration.”
Gong independent again “just felt like the right move — for the brand, for the product, for the team”, added Conrad. Conversations about spinning back out have been going on for the past year. AOL, which bought about.me for a seven figure sum, remains a shareholder — so AOL asked it to raise enough capital to go it alone. To that end, about.me has raised $5.7 million, led by True Ventures, said Conrad. Other investors include SoftTech VC, Google Ventures, Crunchfund and others.
“We’re excited as co-founders to have the brand back, and to go for it and to build hopefully a product and service that crosses over into every household,” added Conrad.
About.me’s blog announcing its return to startup life can be read in full here. AOL is also the owner of TechCrunch.
AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The company’s strategy focuses on increasing the scale and sophistication of its advertising platform and growing the size and engagement of its global online audience through leading products and programming. History of Aol: AOL was founded in the early 1980’s as Control Video Corp, with an online service, Gameline, for the Atari 2600 console. ...
about.me (PumpkinHead) was founded by Tony Conrad, Ryan Freitas and Tim Young in December 2009. One year later, about.me was acquired by AOL. about.me’s simple focus enables you to a) create a personal profile page (think splash page) that points users to your content around the web and b) understand how many people see your profile, where they’re coming from and what they do on your page. There’s a good chance you have multiple on-line profiles scattered across various...
AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The company’s strategy focuses on increasing the scale and sophistication of its advertising platform and growing the size and engagement of its global online audience through leading products and programming. History of Aol: AOL was founded in the early 1980’s as Control Video Corp, with an online service, Gameline, for the Atari 2600 console. ...
about.me (PumpkinHead) was founded by Tony Conrad, Ryan Freitas and Tim Young in December 2009. One year later, about.me was acquired by AOL. about.me’s simple focus enables you to a) create a personal profile page (think splash page) that points users to your content around the web and b) understand how many people see your profile, where they’re coming from and what they do on your page. There’s a good chance you have multiple on-line profiles scattered across various...
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