Tuenti looks like it will go to Telefonica for $99 million. Back in May we reported a rumor that Telefonica was in talks to acquire Tuenti, the ‘Spanish Facebook’, for €80 million” ($104 million).
At least that was the buzz around the Spanish blogosphere. Tuenti vehemently denied it at the time but it looks like the bloggers were right. According to Spanish news site Expansion, the two sides have “virtually sealed the deal” whereby Telefonica will take 90% of the share capital of Tuenti, valuing the company at around €75 million or close to $99 million. In October 2008, Qualitas Equity Partners paid €9.5 million for 17% of Tuenti, which valued it at €55.88 million. There is further confirmation from Martin Varsavsky, founder of FON who has been informally advising the company, who repeats the Expansion story and adds that “all shareholders of Tuenti but management sold all their shares to Telefonica.”
The transaction makes sense. Taking the Mystery out of Scaling a Company. What you got a dollar in your pocketA twenty in your wallet?
See me I’m stacking moneyMatter of fact, I’ll let you watch itGet bigGet bigGet bigGet big—Dorrough, Get Big If you want to build an important company, then at some point you have to scale. People in startup land often talk about the magic of how few people built the original Google or the original Facebook, but today’s Google employs 20,000 people and today’s Facebook employs over 1,500 people. So, if you want to do something that matters, then you are going to have to learn the black art of scaling a human organization. Often board members give entrepreneurs two bits of advice regarding scale: Get a mentorFind some “been there, done that” executives who already know how to scale These answers, while fine as far as they go have some important limitations.
The above advice is still good, but the right way to pick both the best mentors and best employees is by first learning the basics. My Vision of Tech Blogs « DigiDave. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed.
YOU ROCK! Tech blogs play an important role in the larger journalism community. I have long said that tech journalists will often be at the forefront of our industry. It is an occupational hazard. This is possibly why Dan Gillmor was one of the first to blog (don’t forget he started out as a tech reporter). I do not think we hold our tech blogs to high enough standards. Disclaimer: I’m focusing on organizations that cover technology. So without further adieu – my list of tech blogs and their vibes. Read Write Web Right now Read Write Web is the New York Times of tech blogs. Wired It’s hard for me to objectively describe Wired. TechCrunch TechCrunch is guilty of the cult-of-personality. Mashable (Updated from Comments) The truth of the matter is – I love some of the PEOPLE at Mashable (Vadim Lavrusik and Tamar, etc) but I DON’T like Mashable. How Facebook Was Founded.