Alloy Media + Marketing, a division of the publicly listed Alloy, has agreed to acquire high school sports social network and portal TAKKLE and intends to fold it into its youth-focused media and advertising network http://www.TEEN.com. This comes right after Alloy M+M’s acquisition of teen girl community gURL.com.
TAKKLE is essentially an online community service centered around high school and college athletics, enabling young athletes to create player and team profiles, share videos and photos, track and view stats, and allows students to connect with team coaches and college sports recruiters for advancement opportunities. It’s pretty similar to PrepChamps, which also focuses mainly on high school athletes and helping them succeed.
According to the news release, TAKKLE currently draws a monthly audience of about one million athletes. Alloy Media + Marketing’s TEEN.com Network reaches a total audience of over 20 million people.
The terms and size of the acquisition were left out of the release, and requests for more detailed information were declined. Alloy is a public company and would have to disclose if it was a material acquisition, so we’re assuming it’s not. TAKKLE raised venture capital funding to the tune of $7 million in 2007, from investors like Sports Illustrated, the New York City Investment Fund, IJ Smith Enterprises, Greycroft Partners, Liberty Associated Partners and WMG Investments.
Well for a company of Alloy’s size, a couple million dollars would be material, so this must mean that the founders and the VCs took a big loss on this one.
Unfortunately in these cases the VCs are able to get a few pennies on the dollar with the preferred stock, but sad entrpreneurs are left with nothing.
We’ll be seeing a lot more of these deals, I’m afraid.
Anjali Sen
http://smartbab...xy.blogspot.com
The terms of the deal weren’t released, so you can’t say if they took a big loss.
I’d be willing to bet they made a decent enough exit for all concerned, impossible to say though.
Startup so caled wizz
I think you have taken the wrong username.
It is precisely BECAUSE the terms were not released that you can deduce the VCs took a big loss.
It’s simple SEC and VC math … let me know if I need to spell it out for you step by step.
Burton
I said it was impossible to say.
But a “decent enough exit” is relative in the current economy and I’d be willing to bet that it wasn’t a disaster.
Thanks for the kind offer though!
SI led a round earlier that same year: http://tinyurl.com/coxzdy
Note that they were investors a year before that, too.
“Yes! If we keep buying worthless companies, maybe people *cough, investors, cough* will forget that we’re hemorrhaging money! That’s the ticket!”
I like Takkle, but personally I think FirstString is a more athlete-friendly community. A lot smaller right now, but that’s just where they are in their growth curve. Worth keeping an eye on. http://www.firststring.com
Takkle is more of a social network for sports and very different from sites like PrepChamps. In the recruiting space where PrepChamps plays, beRecruited.com is a distant #1 with an active user base of over 14,000 college coaches and 350,000 athletes. While Takkle does serve a need as a social network for athletes, it doesn’t currently provide any tools for coaches to help in the recruiting process. It’s partnership with NCSA was an attempt at doing this but comparing Takkle to a recruiting site like PrepChamps is like comparing MySpace with LinkedIn for business networking. Congrats again to Alloy and the Takkle guys on getting a deal done.
Question: Does anyone think that social networks created just for high school students are good investments?
http://twitter.com/cliffdailey
1,000 unique/month
1.4 million pageivews per month
calculate the followings:
avg pages/user/month?
avg minutes per user/month?
If the avg looks good, then apply unique to pageviews ratio with 1 million unique per month. What would the pageviews per month be?
is that big?
if yes, send me a message on the website. Yes. you can check the stats on Compete.com.
-mot
Instead of spending time on deals with sports illustrated and ncsa and whomever else maybe they should have focused on a product that high schoolers really wanted to use.
All these VC backed web companies who focus on partnerships that don’t go anywhere because the product is weak.
Though in Takkle’s defense I do think it’s the best in their niche. Hopefully TC does a follow up post if they ever find out what the terms of the deal were.
I should have said value prop is weak their product is actually pretty well done.
Alright, is everyone runing for the hills on sports social networking? or rather high school sports social networking? If so, keep an eye on SPORTSWURLZ. Did anyone noticed all these compete on the same level and basis and it didnt work?
In any case, JC about “…schoolers really wanted…” and the value prop. But that’s part of it.
Check out the stats on Compete.com and let me know what you think (at the website email). And check my reply to cliffdailey.
-mot
I meant to say That’s only one part of it.
Agree with Burton. If the VCs had any claim on getting their money back they would have announced the terms of the deal. I was a VC for more than a decade and the last thing you want is for any hard numbers that aren’t a WIN for you and your LPs to become public. VCs live on their reputations – and on keeping the curious from seeing what really goes on – ie: more than 1/2 of their deals fail but one big homerun can make up for that. A VC investor does not want the world to know just how much they lost on any given deal – that kind of news has a way of spreading – and other VCs will begin to shun you as will entrepreneurs. At least that’s the thinking. An undisclosed amount means the VCs took a hit – probably a blood bath. Ambiguity in this case is better than certainty for the investors. Trust me on this one.
BRR