News Corp acquires Storyful

Former RTÉ broadcaster Mark Little, who left the station in 2010 to set up technology company Storyful, would earn €5 million after News Corp, the global media corporation chaired by Rupert Murdoch, bought the firm.

News Corp would pay €18 million for Storyful, which offers multimedia content sourced from social networks to large media clients such as Yahoo.

Little, who would continue as chief executive would now run the company from New York. He is said to have had a stake of between 25 and 30 per cent.

Other staff at the company, that has 32 employees at its Dublin headquarters, would share about €4 million from the deal.

SOS Ventures, the investment company founded by Dragon's Den star Sean O'Sullivan, which invested about €1 million in the venture, would receive around €3.5 million.

Ray Nolan, a serial technology investor would get a similar sum. He had also sold the company behind Hostelworld.com in 2009 for over €200 million.

It is understood Murdoch has taken a keen interest in company as negotiations between News Corp and Investec Corporate Finance, Storyful's Dublin-based advisers, stretched over several months.

In a tweet yesterday Murdoch said: ''Much excitement about @Storyful. Wonderful company doing big things in digital content and video, will be a great asset to @newscorp.''

The 2008-founded company, based out of Dublin, Ireland,  verifies and manages the rights holders of news and videos on social media platforms such as Twitter in real time.

"Storyful has become the village square for valuable video, using journalistic sensibility, integrity and creativity to find, authenticate and commercialize user-generated content," News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said in a statement.

According to commentators, the move offered a bit of light on News Corp's acquisition strategy. Since separation from its cable, TV and movie sister properties, now known as 21st Century Fox, in July, analysts had been keen to understand how News Corp planned to use the cash it held amounting to $2 billion.

According to News Corp, it would operate Storyful as a stand-alone business unit that would continue to maintain partnerships with other news organisations, including The New York Times, Reuters and ABC News.

Raju Narisetti, senior vice president of strategy at News Corp, said the company saw "significant value, especially on the video end, to marry its video with viral video that was out there."