Rumors about Google acquiring RSS management company Feedburner from last week, started by ex-TechCrunch UK editor Sam Sethi, are accurate and are now confirmed according to a source close to the deal. Feedburner is in the closing stages of being acquired by Google for around $100 million. The deal is all cash and mostly upfront, according to our source, although the founders will be locked in for a couple of years.
The information we have is that the deal is now under a binding term sheet and will close in 2-3 weeks, and there is nothing that can really derail it at this point.
Huge congratulations to Feedburner. The company was founded in 2003 and has raised just $10 million in capital over two rounds. Portage Ventures funded their $1 million Series A round in 2004. The $9 million Series B round was closed in mid 2005 (second close in 2006), from Mobius Venture Capital and Union Square Ventures.
Well I guess we are going to be seeing “Ads by Google” in our RSS feeds pretty soon. I think this is a really good sign, Google’s business is delivery information efficiently. This will help that immensely.
Way to go Feedburner!
Thanks Techcrunch for breaking the news.
This just reinstates the fact that google will buy anything that is compatible and increases its ad revenues more that its current products do.
I like Feedburner and if anyone was worth some money it was them. I can’t wait until I can have AdSense advertising in my RSS feed; you just can’t escape ads
Google and Yahoo are racing
I feel bad for yahoo that they’re one step behind Google
GoGoogle
I’m surprised. 100mil sounds little for what I would think is a high growth area.
On the other hand, if feedburner didn’t sell it would always be at google’s peril. With more and more people using analytics, adsense, adwords combo–if google introduced a well done competitor, feedburner’s future market growth would slow down.
Interesting. If Google injects AdSense into the feeds will it block out ads from other networks or other types of advertising?
seems a fair amount.
prolly google will somehow include it into google reader
Good for them! I think this makes a hell of a lot of sense for both companies.
They should just rename the internet to Google.
Uh oh, does that mean there will be a Google engineering office sprouting up in the Windy City?
Fred Wilson is having a good week. Two exits in 3 days.
“Uh oh, does that mean there will be a Google engineering office sprouting up in the Windy City?”
No.
Google? RSS? Smells like trouble for TextLinkAds.
Oh well. Congrats Feedburner!
Makes a lot of sense for both organizations. Way to go FeedBurner!
Loving this move by Google. Congrats to feedburner. I think I speak for everyone in saying that Feedburner rules for RSS.
I am very happy for Feedburner, this is on of the services that are so usefull, and so well done… Congrats!!
More google ads in my feeds now.
“Google? RSS? Smells like trouble for TextLinkAds.”
How so Brian?
Wow. Great going feedburner.
who will acquire techcrunch?
Just $100mil - sounds quite small compared to the youtube deal.
Surely feedburner should be able to be more profitable than youtube?
Feedburner is a great product and company. Very impressive, though the figure seems quite small. Then again they are still under 500,000 publishers. I would have thought they had more.
“Currently feeding 422,717 publishers who’ve burned 721,074 feeds (as of 21 May 07).”
Add:
2 rounds of fund raising… +
4 co-founders… +
a bunch of geek employees with stocks… +
$100 price tag +
= not such a great payday for each co-founder… $10M max for each
Sucks to have friends when you start a company
LOL
Wow. Who doesn’t use Feedburner. I agree with Zaid. Is that too little?
Google is much ahead of its competitors in vision and strategy. Our future revolves more around Google. As long Google is sharing some money, I don’t bother about others.
@ 23 - RSS should continue to grow. Plus, that’s 400+K publishers. That’s translate into alot of readers for each. Look at TechCrunch. I remember the single thousands readers.
Cograts to Dick and Company for an excellent exit. Hats off to Mr. Feld and Mr. Wilson for a wise Series B investment.
Great, I keep trying to stay away from Google, and they keep buying up the services I use.
Since I’ve was banned from AdSense over a dispute I had with them years back, what does that mean for my ability to embed ads in my feeds? I’m sure the foot will fall on the current advertising in FB soon, if not immediatly.
To me, this whole 2.0 consolidation crap is getting annoying. I would love to outsource more of my stuff, but when buyouts and mergers keep happening left and right, there is no safe place to go. I’ve prob used 20 different services over the years that have been gobbled up and phased out in favor of the largers service that I turned down in the first place.
When you say a “rumor” was “started” by an “ex-TechCrunch” employee, did you mean it was a “story” that was “broken” by a “competitor” who scooped you?
I hear the next acquisition is Jajah.
Wait, I thought you were trying to get away from all this acquisition BS and get back to the cool tech apps??? Or was that post just one of your many mood swings? You create your own reality, my friend.
Hopefully this doesn’t mean Google pauses new signups like they did for Writely as they Google-fy the new property.
As of May 2007, FeedBurner hosted feeds for 410,769 publishers.
That makes the number of what Google is paying per publisher to be $243.
Congradulations to FeedBurner.
Now how about Feedster and anyone knows any other sites that are still not purchased?
Huh?
Am I the only one that really doesn’t want to see ads popping up in my RSS reader. Isnt’ that why I use my RSS reader instead of relying on my email inbox which is full of ads (spam). Now my reader is going to be full of crap?
Or is this deal so that better/more ads can be placed on Feedburner’s stylized view of rss feeds. If thats the case, I still don’t get it. With the latest browsers all having their own RSS view no one sees this stylized view anymore. The only ones that still see it are using IE6.
Google is racing against Yahoo, Microsoft, and winning! Congrats FeedBurner. Really enjoy your product!
Congratulations to the FeedBurner team and great move on Google’s part., it just makes sense for them to be a strong competitor in RSS advertising. Everyone wins from Google, FeedBurner and even the publishers who use FeedBurner.
Congrats to Feedburner! And to Google!
Wow - this is a stunner to the FEED Business
only 100 million? - that is a lot of money for a technology that will be replaced by ATOM in the next year - then again
- I guess the purchase was the customer - not the product …
-RB
Google. Ugh.
When will the buying stop?
Mike
I can’t say anything about the rumored deal, but you did miss two other VC firms who are in the deal; Sutter Hill and DFJ. It’s a great management team and a great group of investors.
Fred
Congrats to Feedburner!
Congrats to Feedburner!
Looks like a great idea + management skills = something google wants more of!
Anything related to the Interwebs, technology, information, data, advertising…will one day be a Google product. As Adam said, the Internet should just be renamed Google. ISPs will become GSPs.
During the Super Bowl, the network will sell 30-second Google spots for millions at a clip.
TechCrunch will becoming GoogleCrunch.
Marketing will becoming “Google gaming” or maybe just “Google optimizing.”
And perhaps best of all, piracy and copyright infringement will forever be known as “f–king over Google.”
I don’t get it, how is “Google? RSS? Smells like trouble for TextLinkAds.” applicable? Where’s the trouble?
Good can make everything
Congrats to FeedBurner!
Sounds like users might benefit as much as Google if this is true.
I’m guessing FeedBurner’s stats system will be replaced/merged into Analytics, and made free, of course. We might also see Google Accounts integration so that it can work with AdSense + AdWords through one interface.