As we'd heard, Facebook has found a strategic investor in Asia: Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing will reportedly invest $60 million in Facebook with the option to double up later. The 79 year old is the world's ninth richest person and, as the photo above would indicate, a Facebook member as well. Though on the site, he's listed himself as a she. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Last week, AMD announced that the Abu Dhabi government was buying 8 percent of the company for $622 million. Now, Dubai International Capital, an investment vehicle for Sheikh Al Maktoum, ruler of the Persian Gulf emirate, has bought a "substantial" stake in Sony. The firm said it invested because of Sony's "ongoing strategy of focusing on capital efficiency and cash generation." Shares in Sony rose 4.6 percent on the news. No word on who Fox Business Network's silver-tongued anchors named as the buyer, but we're sure it was amusing.
Andrew Conru, the porn baron of Palo Alto, is denying rumors that he has sold either his company, Various Inc., or its best-known property, Adult FriendFinder. "We haven't sold anything," he said. "It would be sweet if it were true." Conru has never raised outside money for his site and still owns 90 percent of Various. That means that any sale is really his call. But then there's this. "We're focusing on the growth of the company," Conru said. Here's a tip: Whenever you hear a CEO saying something as anodyne and meaningless like that, expect a sale any minute. TechCrunch now says Penthouse might be the buyer, for $500 million. Heard anything more? Let us know.
Andrew Conru is the accidental porn baron, the mild-mannered geek who found himself running a massive X-rated classifieds website, Adult FriendFinder, from sedate Palo Alto. Rumor has it that he just sold the site, one of his many properties, for $100 million. Michael Arrington reports that he may have sold his company, Various Inc., for $1 billion. A nice headline, but we doubt it. What Conru has said in the past is that he wants to take Various public. The Adult FriendFinder site, however, has been a sticking point for investment bankers, who don't want to try to sell porn to the investing public. For Conru's ambitions, divesting Adult FriendFinder would make perfect sense, since the rest of Various — which includes much more respectable sites like BigChurch — could then IPO to cash in on the social-networking craze.
As a side note, a little known fact is that when I was at Friendster, I found a small company out of Harvard that we came very close to acquiring, a startup no one had heard of that time, a company named Thefacebook. I've been an admirer of Zuck and the facebook team for a long time now.
WhatsOpen, the stealth startup behind the first known Googlephone app, is quietly admitting to people in the industry that it is using Google's Android OS for cell phones for its mobile app which tells users which nearby stores are open. As the wags at Gizmodo noted, the killer app for Android is figuring out where to get a beer at 3 a.m. Other than that, WhatsOpen's secretive founders are anxious to downplay their ties to Google. After Google billionaire Sergey Brin was spotted asking a WhatsOpen executive to keep his company under wraps, people widely expected a noiseless Google takeover.
Yesterday, we floated a rumor that IAC was thinking about buying social network MyYearbook. Not the case, says Caroline McCarthy of News.com. Her sources hypothesize that MyYearbook's participation in a "mock pitch" session with IAC's Barry Diller at this week's Quadrangle conference was mistaken for something more than it was, a sort of moot court for entrepreneurs. We're not so sure. Our source told us that MyYearbook was "the winner" — and not just of that presentation. The site caught Diller's attention, possibly enough to set talks in motion. Were any potential talks nixed after word leaked to Valleywag? Quite possible. Diller likes to buy cheap, and rumors have been known to spark bidding wars. (Photo by saveena)
"I would like to deny that Fark will be sold for $750 million. I cannot confirm talks at this time. I also cannot confirm that Jason Calacanis has sex with sheep." That's what Drew Curtis, the acid-tongued, whip-smart founder of Fark, a social-news site which competes with Digg, emailed me after reading our rumor of the impending sale of his rival for $300 million. Curtis is obviously dismissive of the mooted Digg valuation. And I've heard lots of scoffing on that number — both ways. It tends to fall in an obvious pattern: East Coasters think $300 million is way too high, and West Coasters think it's way too low. Compete's Jay Meattle crunches the numbers and finds arguments for both sides.
By our count, Ticketmaster's upcoming spinoff from IAC will be the seventh time Barry Diller has bought or sold a piece of the online-ticketing agency, starting from the first stake he acquired in it a decade ago. After the jump, a chronology of Diller's Ticketmaster deals.
Telecom mogul John Malone has been putting the squeeze on his old buddy Barry Diller, who runs IAC. So what does Diller do? Break his search and e-commerce conglomerate into five parts. Diller's sticking with the new IAC, which will mostly consist of the Ask.com search engine — oh, and Jakob Lodwick, too. HSN, Ticketmaster, LendingTree, and Interval International are getting spun off. We just want to know who's getting stuck with the bill for IAC's new headquarters in Chelsea.
Yesterday, Accel Partners VC Jim Breyer, who sits on Facebook's board with Peter Thiel and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, made an offhand comment about Facebook's unfinished financing round. Microsoft has already put in $240 million, and Facebook's board has authorized sleepless CFO Gideon Yu to go raise another $260 million. Here's what Breyer said to Silicon Alley Insider: "$50 million, $100 million, $200 million." He said it with a shrug, but we think his insouciance was feigned. That's because Facebook already has a firm commitment in hand for that $50 million Breyer mentioned. The board is still deciding whether to take that money.
Ad network Specific Media has raised $100 million from Francisco Partners, a private equity firm. Founded by three brothers eight years ago, Specific Media places ads on many sites including those of ABC, NBC, CBS, ESPN and Major League Baseball. The company is hoping to expand through acquisitions to hold off the major ad players. [AP]
Read/WriteWeb is pondering what websites are worth. It starts off comparing Plentyoffish, the Canadian dating site, with Facebook. By the numbers? Facebook will have about 15 times Plentyoffish's $10 million in revenues this year. So shouldn't it be worth one-fifteenth as much as Facebook, or $1 billion?
Business advice, that is. Despite Paul Boutin's entreaties, I find I just can't leave Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg alone. Neither, apparently, can acquisitive buyers. TechCrunch reports that Automattic, maker of the popular WordPress blog software, just turned down a $200 million offer. Interesting timing, considering that Mullenweg was spotted just last week at David Hornik's Hawaiian funconference, The Lobby, having a very close chat with Harde. In the moment when the two were spotted by gutter-minded gossips having a tête-a-tête, was Harde advising Mullenweg on whether or not to take the offer? And, in the process, helping score an exclusive for TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington? (Photo by True Ventures)
We picked up Dan Lyons's rumor as Fake Steve Jobs that Facebook has cajoled hedge funds into investing another $500 million, and noted that CFO Gideon Yu must never sleep. And Forbes, where Lyons has a day job, also called the deal complete. Not so, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. The new investment will only be as much as another $260 million, making the total raised in this round, including Microsoft's money, $500 million. An announcement could come soon, but nothing's been signed yet. We know some VCs wanted in on this deal but hear it got too rich for them. (Photo by spcbrass)
Internal memos offer, if not juicy gossip, telling insight into the character of an organization. Not so with the missive Microsoft lead negotiator Kevin Johnson sent around to explain his Facebook triumph. It's just more "win-win-win" blather that you'd expect from a salesman. Johnson tells coworkers the deal will demonstrate to advertisers that Microsoft is a winner and that for publishers "it is further evidence of Microsoft's commitment to long-term innovation." I'm sure the thousands of geeks in Microsoft's R&D labs are stewing over that line — not that they've come up with anything even vaguely as cool as Facebook. But whatever. We know the real reason Johnson sent the memo. To get this reply from Ballmer — the CEO's actual words: "Great job you really pulled this together unbelievably." Cha-ching!
Maybe Google cofounder Sergey Brin is feeling a little touchy. Yesterday, while Microsoft and Facebook consummated their deal with a very public "win-win-win" lovefest, Brin, an internal champion of the Facebook deal, was stuck with 300 financial analysts and press at Google Analyst Day. His immediate reaction to losing out to Microsoft?
