MySpace has acquired iLike. The press release
was issued just a few moments ago, and I am on the press call awaiting
more details. But for now, here's the press release that the companies
issued a few moments ago. It doesn't mention a purchase price, though
TechCrunch has pegged it at $20 million. I am sure there will be
chatter about that today. iLike will remain in Seattle and its
employees will stay on board.
LOS
ANGELES – August 19, 2009 – MySpace today announced an agreement to
acquire iLike, a leading social music discovery service. The
acquisition brings together two companies who share a common vision
revolving around social discovery and distribution of quality content.
“The
iLike acquisition advances our relentless pursuit of innovation and the
need to create new distributed social experiences in music and beyond,”
said Owen Van Natta, Chief Executive Officer of MySpace. “We are deeply
committed to bringing world class talent into all areas of the company
and this acquisition demonstrates our focus on this objective.”
Brothers
Ali and Hadi Partovi founded iLike in 2006, and in just two years made
it the largest music application across all social networks with 55
million total users and 1.5 billion monthly impressions.
The entire iLike team will stay intact including, CEO Ali Partovi, President Hadi Partovi and CTO Nat Brown.
All
three are seasoned entrepreneurs who’ve held executive positions at
both start-ups and Fortune 100 companies. Prior to iLike, Ali Partovi
founded and sold LinkExchange to Microsoft and Hadi Partovi
independently co-founded and sold TellMe Networks, also to Microsoft.
Hadi Partovi also incubated Start.com (now Live.com). Brown has a deep
and respected history as an early architect at Microsoft, and he was
involved in the creation the first Xbox, .NET/CLR, and ActiveX/COM/OLE.
“MySpace’s
strengths have been a long-time source of inspiration for iLike,” said
Hadi Partovi, President of iLike.“Combining MySpace’s existing
platform, reach and resources with iLike’s syndication network and
social discovery tools creates the potential for truly exciting
innovation and commerce across any vertical entertainment category --
our combined assets now span all the major social networks. I'm
enthusiastic about what this combination will mean for our users,
artists, advertisers, and our staff. We are beginning an exciting new
journey together.”
iLike users and the
artist community should expect the iLike experience to be unaffected by
the acquisition. iLike will remain headquartered in Seattle. Financial
terms of the acquisition were not released.