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Yahoo Board Approves Purchase of Tumblr

Max Meyer |
May 19, 2013 | 2:59 p.m. PDT

Executive Producer

 

This is Yahoo's biggest purchase since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO (Flickr, Creative Commons)
This is Yahoo's biggest purchase since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO (Flickr, Creative Commons)
Yahoo's board of directors has approved to acquire the blogging site Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash. The Yahoo board unanimously approved the deal over a telephone meeting on Friday.

Tumblr was founded in 2007 and is a social-media website that allows people to post blogs and photos, along with users having the ability to follow other people's updates from a feed. Tumblr has grown quickly ever since, having around 117 million unique users in March. Tumblr only generated $13 million in revenue last year however.

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This is the largest deal Yahoo has made since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO last summer. Mayer was rumored to have been talking with Tumblr CEO David Karp throughout this past week regarding a deal, until it was made official today. 

One of Mayer's goals for Yahoo has been appealing to the younger demographic. While Yahoo has recently redesigned its home page and its e-mail service Yahoo Mail, acquiring Tumblr is a step in the right direction for generating a younger audience. The strategy has worked in terms of stock performance, as Yahoo's stock price has increased by 69 percent since Mayer left Google for Yahoo. 

Yahoo is expected to hold a press conference on Monday in New York City to announce the transaction. 

 

 

Reach Executive Producer Max Meyer by email.



 

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