Yahoo acquires Tumblr for $1.1-bn

Yahoo Inc today said that it will offer $1.1 billion in cash to acquire blogging service Tumblr, a deal which would be chief executive Marissa Mayer's largest acquisition since she took charge last year of the once Internet giant.

Founded in 2007 by David Karp and Marco Arment, Tumblr is a microblogging platform and social networking website, which allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.

With more than 300 million monthly unique visitors and 120,000 signups every day, Tumblr is one of the fastest-growing media networks in the world. Tumblr sees 900 posts per second and 24 billion minutes spent on site each month.

On mobile, more than half of Tumblr's users are using the mobile app and do an average of 7 sessions per day.

Tumblr lets a user share and post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from browsers, phones, desktop or email.

Tumblr has raised $125 million from investors that include Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, and Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, Insight Venture Partners.

Yahoo said that Tumblr has a tremendous popularity and engagement among creators, curators and audiences of all ages, which brings a significant new community of users to the Yahoo network. The combination of Tumblr and Yahoo is expected to expand Yahoo's audience by 50 per cent to more than a billion monthly visitors, and to raise traffic by approximately 20 per cent.

The deal offers unique opportunities for both companies. Tumblr can deploy Yahoo's personalisation technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content, while Tumblr brings 50 billion blog posts to Yahoo's media network and search engine.

Under the deal, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business. David Karp will remain CEO.

"Tumblr is redefining creative expression online," said Mayer. "On many levels, Tumblr and Yahoo! couldn't be more different, but, at the same time, they couldn't be more complementary. Yahoo is the Internet's original media network. Tumblr is the Internet's fastest-growing media frenzy. Both companies are homes for brands - established and emerging. And, fundamentally, Tumblr and Yahoo are both all about users, design, and finding surprise and inspiration amidst the everyday."

Karp said, "Our team isn't changing. Our roadmap isn't changing. And our mission - to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve - certainly isn't changing. But we're elated to have the support of Yahoo! and their team who share our dream to make the Internet the ultimate creative canvas. Tumblr gets better faster with more resources to draw from."