Fotolog Acquired by Hi Media, French Ad Network

Om Malik, Monday, August 27, 2007 at 8:38 AM PT Comments (23)

EXCLUSIVE: We had previously speculated that New York-based Fotolog would be the next one to get acquired. And we were right. It has been acquired by Hi Media, a Paris-based interactive media company for roughly $90 million — a combination of cash and stock, according to well-placed sources. The announcement is likely to be made later today.

Hi-Media is Europe’s third-ranked interactive advertising agency and also a provider of electronic micro-payment solutions in France. This deal makes them one of the largest pure-play Internet companies in Europe. Fotolog CEO John Borthwick explained to us that Hi Media management believes that it can better monetize the traffic on Fotolog, and it also add a publishing-element to their over all business.

The deal, while not as rich as Fox Interactive’s $250 million buyout of Photobucket, is a darn good exit for a company that has been flying under the radar in the U.S. There were rumors that some Latin American acquirers were taking a hard look at Fotolog and the price tag was north of $100 million. Fotolog was started in May 2002, and since then has grown rapidly — in Europe and Latin America — and is one of the Alexa 25 companies.

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23 comments so far

August 27th, 2007
9:34 AM PT

[...] [via: Fotolog Acquired by Hi Media, French Ad Network « GigaOM] advertising [...]

August 27th, 2007
9:34 AM PT

[...] the official release. And here’s Om’s first take. Posted in Technology & [...]

August 27th, 2007
10:27 AM PT

[...] Fotolog is a case in point. I have just read that Hi Media, a Paris-based interactive media company, acquired it for roughly $90 million. [...]

August 27th, 2007
10:32 AM PT
August 27th, 2007
11:00 AM PT

Hi Media Buys Fotolog for $90m

French ad network Hi Media purchased Fotolog for a reported price of roughly $90 million. Click for full story from GigaOM…

August 27th, 2007
11:29 AM PT

[...] Fotolog, a popular photo-sharing service, has been bought by France’s Hi-Media for $90 million, GigaOm reports. [...]

August 27th, 2007
12:47 PM PT

Photosharing and social networking site Fotolog to be sold to french Hi-Media Group for $90 Million

While the world is talking about Getty Images´new revamped website and the new, low-priced ‘Web Resolution’ image (which Derick Rhodes of fStop Royalty-Free immediately discovered on Friday), the big news

August 27th, 2007
12:52 PM PT

[...] Congrats to Scott Heiferman, Adam Seifer and John Borthwick - on selling Fotolog. Fotolog was the original original social photo sharing site - before Flickr, delicious, Facebook, anything - there was Fotolog. It’s over five years old. They were wildly accepted in Brazil, Japan and elsewhere - but typical of the Arrington 50,000 - no one else had a clue what was going on. I was interviewed by 3i when they invested. Adam was the heart behind Fotolog while Scott ran MeetUp. They brought in Borthwick (apparently to ‘flip it.) And he did! [...]

August 27th, 2007
2:34 PM PT

[...] Fotolog Acquired by Hi Media, French Ad Network (via [...]

August 27th, 2007
2:54 PM PT

[...] Giga OM Prohibida su copia total con o sin fines comerciales. Copias parciales deben citar la fuente. [...]

August 27th, 2007
4:39 PM PT

[...] “fromage” (cheese, in French): New York-based photo-sharing Web site Fotolog has been acquired by Hi Media, an interactive media company based in Paris. The deal, reports GigaOm, will create one of the [...]

August 28th, 2007
4:39 AM PT
Julien said:

Congratulations to the Hi-Media and the Fotolog teams!

Fotolog’s success in Latin America, and now Europe, is quite impressive, and the geographical fit for Hi-Media makes a lot of sense.

It is really interesting to see that a lot of things are happening outside of the US market (albeit usually on a smaller scale). And hopefully this will help bring more attention from US investors and companies to the Brazilian and Latin American markets :-)

Cheers!

Julien

August 28th, 2007
6:29 AM PT

[...] de El Ascensor) y antes de cerrar, un grupo europeo se compró Fotolog y yo que pensaba que algún millonario latino como los Slim, Piñera, Sahieh, Edwards, Claro, [...]

August 28th, 2007
7:15 AM PT

Hi-media rachète le site communautaire Fotolog pour 65,8 millions d’euros

Hi-media - société française de marketing services aliant régie publicitaire online, publishing online, services de marketing online, référencement, services de paiement sur internet - rachète le site communautaire américain Fotolog pour 65,8 m…

August 28th, 2007
3:36 PM PT
August 31st, 2007
8:19 AM PT

[...] resources:Official press releaseHi Media acquires Fotolog - Paid ContentFotolog Acquired by French Ad Network - Om [...]

October 4th, 2007
2:23 PM PT

[...] since then has grown rapidly - in Europe and Latin America - and is one of the Alexa 25 companies. Source> [...]

November 28th, 2007
8:39 AM PT

[...] services, completed its acquisition today of Fotolog. The $90 million deal was first announced last August. Since then, Fotolog has added two million more members for a total of 13 million, and claims 3.9 [...]

November 28th, 2007
2:18 PM PT

[...] services, completed its acquisition today of Fotolog. The $90 million deal was first announced last August. Since then, Fotolog has added two million more members for a total of 13 million, and claims 3.9 [...]

November 29th, 2007
2:05 AM PT

[...] has been reported that the price tag was roughly $90 million in cash and stock. These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]

April 28th, 2008
8:00 AM PT

[...] by John Borthwick (a former AOL executive who recently sold photo-sharing service Fotolog to Hi Media of France for $90 million), is about to launch its first project, [...]

May 1st, 2008
11:01 AM PT

[...] by John Borthwick (a former AOL executive who recently sold photo-sharing service Fotolog to Hi Media of France for $90 million), is about to launch its first project, SwitchAbit. The project, described by Borthwick as a [...]

May 21st, 2008
8:26 AM PT

[...] a photo-sharing site similar in many respects to webshots or flickr. Press Release | TechCrunch | GigaOm | Mashable | [...]

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