Super excited, after having the original idea 4 years ago and then turning it into a business a little more than two years ago, the company I started was acquired on Monday.
Not bad for a bootstrapped company. It's been a a wild ride over the past two years, tons of up and down moments. But overall, I wouldn't trade it for anything. The acquisition was a bit bitter sweet, but the future is very promising and I'm excited to move forward.
BTW, our code has been running pretty much every on line forum that matters, including this one.
So here goes the release and press:
Not bad for a bootstrapped company. It's been a a wild ride over the past two years, tons of up and down moments. But overall, I wouldn't trade it for anything. The acquisition was a bit bitter sweet, but the future is very promising and I'm excited to move forward.
BTW, our code has been running pretty much every on line forum that matters, including this one.
So here goes the release and press:
Affiliate link startups team up: VigLink acquires DrivingRevenue
VentureBeat, by Anthony Ha
August 2, 2010
Affiliate link startups team up: VigLink acquires DrivingRevenue | VentureBeat
VigLink, a Google Ventures-backed startup that helps publishers make money off their product links, just announced that it’s has acquired its competitor DrivingRevenue.com.
San Francisco-based VigLink isn’t sharing the price or other deal details, but chief executive Oliver Roup told me the two companies are actually rather complementary — where VigLink has focused out on building its technology such as detailed data and analytics for publishers, DrivingRevenue has recruited a large sales team and already facilitated nearly $200 million in purchases through its affiliate links. As a result, the companies are merging withint cutting a single member of the workforce, and DrivingRevenue will keep its Chicago office, Roup said.
The appeal of companies like VigLink is that they can help online publishers make money without much extra work. Publishers can already earn a commission through affiliate links, where they take a cut on the sales that result from links to commercial sites like Amazon.com. VigLink and DrivingRevenue automate that process, so publishers just add a few lines of code to their site, then any link that could be an affiliate link becomes one.
But will this become a serious money source for publishers? It’s still early for the industry (DrivingRevenue is only two years old, and its competitors are younger), but DrivingRevenue cofounder and CEO Raymond Lyle said his company is already earning some of its customers an amount within 10 or 15 percent of what they earn from Google’s AdSense program.
DrivingRevenue was self-funded, but Lyle said that given the increasing competition in the field, the company reached a point where it either needed to raise money or team up. And getting acquired made more sense, since VigLink has already lined up such an impressive roster of backers — not just Google, but also First Round Capital, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, former Google executive and current LinkedIn Vice President of Product Dipchand Nishar, and others. Lyle is now VigLink’s president.
VigLink’s main competitor at this point is a British startup called Skimlinks.
Affiliate Link Startup VigLink Buys Rival DrivingRevenue
paidContent, by Joseph Tartakoff
August 2, 2010
Affiliate Link Startup VigLink Buys Rival DrivingRevenue | paidContent
VigLink, a Google-backed startup that helps publishers monetize the traffic they send to e-commerce sites, is buying more established rival DrivingRevenue. Like VigLink, which launched its service earlier this year, DrivingRevenue provides customers with a few lines of code which they embed on their sites in order to automaticalaly enroll in thousands of affiliate marketing programs; they get a commission whenever visitors click on a link to a third party site and make a purchase.
VigLink CEO Oliver Roup, who will head up the combined company, says the deal makes VigLink the biggest player in the market, ahead of rival SkimLinks. He says that together VigLink and DrivingRevenue will process about two million clicks a day. They list Internet Brands, Technorati, and Posterous among their customers.
Roup says the two companies will combine their services, allowing them to get better rates from affiliate marketing programs; he also says it’s possible that the new company might introduce some additional products based on the data it collects about user’s shopping habits, which might be useful in ad targeting.
No financial terms of the deal were announced, although Roup said the purchase price was a “mixture of cash and equity, very heavily weighted to future value.” “Driving Revenue did not cash out, they doubled down,” he said.
VigLink has raised $800,000 from investors including Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Ventures, First Round Capital and LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman. DrivingRevenue, which was established in two years ago, hadn’t raised venture capital funding.
VigLink Acquires DrivingRevenue.com
Affiliate Tip, by Shawn Collins
August 3, 2010
VigLink Acquires DrivingRevenue.com
VigLink, a service that enables people to automatically convert existing links into affiliate links, has acquired DrivingRevenue.com.
DrivingRevenue.com also converts direct links to affiliate links for affiliates after an affiliate places a snippet of JavaScript on their page(s).
Combined customers include avsforums.com, Forum Foundry, Huddler, Internet Brands, KickApps, Macworld, PCWorld, ReadWriteWeb, Technorati, Tom’s Hardware, and Posterous.
DrivingRevenue.com recently surpassed 2,000,000 affiliate transactions.
New Acquisition: VigLink Buys Driving Revenue Inc
Affiliate Marketing Blog, by Geno Prussakov
August 3, 2010
http://www.amnavigator.com/blog/2010/08/03/new-acquisition-viglink-buys-driving-revenue-inc/
I have just received the news of a new big acquisition in affiliate marketing. Seeking to strengthen its positions on the market of outbound traffic monetization VigLink has just acquired Driving Revenue.
The official press release (to be circulated online in just a few hours) will read:
Both companies provide Web publishers an entirely new revenue source based on the value of their outbound traffic, with no impact on customer experience. Driving Revenue brings well over $100 million of merchandise transactions to the company, making the combined entity the definitive leader in the space. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
VigLink has also announced this acquisition in their blog, where the company’s founding CEO, Oliver Roup, added that “as part of this deal,” VigLink’s “key investors Google Ventures and First Round Capital both more than doubled their investment in the company.”
Both companies focus on helping web content creators monetize their traffic through outbound affiliate links. Apart from the additional clientele (content publishers and merchants) for VigLink, the new deal will more than likely translate into synergistic benefits of combined technologies, which will ultimately benefit affiliates themselves. We’ll keep monitoring the situation, and updating you on any news on this front.
Google-Backed VigLink Acquires Driving Revenue
WebProNews, by Chris Crum
August 3, 2010
Google-Backed VigLink Acquires Driving Revenue | WebProNews
VigLink has acquired outbound traffic monetization company Driving Revenue, which brings over $100 million of merchandise transactions to the company. VigLink says this makes the combined entity the "definitive leader" in the space.
VigLink is a company that is backed by Google Ventures, Google's venture capital arm. It's a content monetization and affiliate marketing company aimed at bloggers.
"We offer a simple snippet of code you can install in your blog that automatically and transparently does all the work for you," explains VigLink CEO Oliver Roup. "We've catalogued and signed up for more than 12,500 affiliate programs and we collect all the performance information and deliver you a single integrated payment. In return, VigLink takes 25% of the incremental revenue you earn."
"Driving Revenue was the original innovator in this space and has transacted well over $100 million worth of merchandise through their system," he says. "This acquisition provides us with the ability to accelerate our already burgeoning business, as well as to bring on a fantastic team with incredible depth in the affiliate marketing industry."
"Quite simply, if you're a Web publisher who hasn't recognized the value of your outbound traffic, you are leaving money on the table," adds Raymond Lyle, CEO and Co-Founder of Driving Revenue. "Dozens of our publishers make six figure incomes for a one-time investment of one minute of work. Who isn't interested in that?"
The two companies combined, claim to track over 2 million publisher clicks a day and 3 billion monthly page views across over 12,000 merchant programs and dozens of networks.
VigLink will keep all of Driving Revenue's employees, who will continue to work from their Chicago-based office, though the company's CTO and Co-founder, Jack Bafia, will join VigLink in San Francisco. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Affiliate Marketing Company VigLink Acquires Rival DrivingRevenue
Marketing Pilgrim, by Cynthia Boris
August 3rd, 2010
Affiliate Marketing Company VigLink Acquires Rival DrivingRevenue
“We met for dinner in Chicago. We liked each other. Our companies had very complementary strengths. One thing led to another.”
Sounds like an influential CEO confessing to an elicit affair, but it’s really VigLink CEO Oliver Roup talking about how his company happened to acquire rival DrivingRevenue this past Friday. It began with an email from Revenue’s Raymond Lyle and Jack Bafia saying they should talk. That was in May, so it was quite a rush to the alter. Says Roup;
“We’re very excited to be joining forces. Ray is going to lead the sales and merchant relationship team and run our Chicago office. Jack will be moving to San Francisco to assume leadership of the product team. Everyone else is keeping their job as well. They’ve all made a big bet on the future of the combined business. They are doubling down, not cashing out.”
Sounds like one big happy family, doesn’t it? VigLink has plenty of reasons to be happy. Back in January, the company, which works as an affiliate middleman between bloggers and merchants, got $800,000 in funding from Google Ventures and First Round Capital. Now, in the wake of the merger, Roup says the investors have doubled their initial offers.
What’s DrivingRevenue bringing to the table? Not cash, but the know-how. They’ve been at this for two years and have amassed a strong group of partners that will put them way ahead of their remaining competitor, Skimlinks.
We wish the lucky couple all the happiness in the world.
