OPW – Nov 25 – I talked with the Chairman of Manhunt to find out more about Manhunt's acquisition of Jack'd, announced last week. Here's the summary of insights Jonathan Crutchley was kind enough to share.
Jack'd was started in early 2010 by Yosuke Matsuda, a young Japanese engineering student who was working on his master's degree at Cornell University. Yosuke programmed Jack'd from his dorm room while at school and launched it with the Apple and Google stores as a hobby. Yosuke now works for a company in Seattle, Washington. He decided to sell Jack'd to Online Buddies, Inc. when his hobby (Jack'd) made overwhelming demands on his time. He was the sole employee of Jack'd, and he just didn't have time to run the app as well as keep up with the demands of his daytime job.
- As far as financials and numbers go, Jack'd is a very new product. Its best days are ahead.
- Manhunt signed the acquisition deal about 6 months ago, when Jack'd had over 2 million active accounts and about 1 million daily unique users.
- ~Half of Jack'd daily users are in Mainland China, and those numbers are growing fast.
- Jack'd was bought for its traffic rather than its revenue.
See the rest on the CB blog.
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TECH CRUNCH – Nov 28 – Live music giant Live Nation has acquired Meexo, a mobile startup. The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed. Meexo's two co-founders will take on new roles at Live Nation Labs. Romain David will lead mobile product and Dav Yaginuma mobile engineering. Meexo had already turned its attention away from the dating app, and after talking to investors David and Yaginuma decided to look at their options, including Exitround.
