A dotcom dinosaur reborn
Yahoo, an early internet trailblazer, yesterday announced its acquisition of venture capital-focused media startup StrictlyVC to bolster its tech news site, TechCrunch. The deal adds to Yahoo's recent shopping spree, following its acquisitions of the social investing platform CommonStock earlier this month, sports betting app Wagr in April, and “unbiased news platform”, TheFactual, last year.
Yahoo was big tech before big tech was the size of countries. In 1994, the company's founders launched "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" — the first version of a directory and web portal that, as Yahoo, would go on to offer search, email, shopping, news and more, propelling the company’s valuation to $125bn during the peak of the dotcom bubble.
Of course, Yahoo stumbled soon after, as fierce competition — particularly from Google and nascent social media sites — ate into at its user base. As the wave of “web 2.0” washed over the world, Yahoo was increasingly left behind. In 2013, the company acquired Tumblr for $1.1bn — which didn’t work out — and eventually, Yahoo itself was bought by Verizon for $4.5bn.
Under new management
Since then, Yahoo has changed hands again, and today is owned by private equity giant Apollo after a deal in 2021. Now, the company wants to reinvent itself. Management are looking to get competitive again in the world of search, leveraging the core profitability of its legacy businesses, and the 4 billion (!) visits that Yahoo.com still reportedly receives every month.
