
Acquisition Exit: it's not just Google & Yahoo - sabat

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dpapathanasiou
These deals do happen all the time, but you don't hear about most of them
because they're not in the sexy ( _resisting urge to say bottom joke_ ) Web
2.0/social networking space.

Instead, they tend to happen in more boring (but profitable) areas like
accounting or security software.

This site (a boutique broker specializing in software acquisitions) has a list
of recent M&A; deals along those lines:
<http://corumgroup.com/CorumTransactions.asp>

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plusbryan
question: do companies have dedicated teams to go out and find small companies
to eat, or it more or less a random process?

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jamongkad
My guess its the latter. I can't imagine big companies acquiring for the sake
of it without doing some serious research.

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sabat
Google and Yahoo are most startups' exit strategies, according to conventional
wisdom. And now we've seen a few articles about how Google and Yahoo really
aren't acquiring very many companies.

 _But Google and Yahoo are hardly the only companies that buy companies._

How about Amazon? Amazon buys companies, and is probably going to buy a lot
more. Ebay. News Corp (Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace and wants to buy more).
VeriSign. Cisco (it acquires small companies all the time!).

And it's not just the big boys. You don't necessarily need a serial acquirer
-- for instant, stock site TheStreet bought out startup StockPickr. Private-
but-successful startup Six Apart (Type Pad, Moveable Type, for those of you
who've been asleep) bought out LiveJournal.

This post isn't just a retort to the "better find another exit strategy" meme.

 _What other companies do acquisitions?_ I suspect I've barely scratched the
surface here.

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mkull
Don't forget IAC (InterActiveCorp), they have been behind many acquisitions in
the past several years.

Notably: Insider Pages, Expedia, CollegeHumor, Ask.com, Hotwire, LendingTree
and many others

