Ahead of Twitter’s pending IPO, CB Insights released data on early-stage startups picked up by the social media giant. Twitter, like most growing web companies, has long had its eye on interesting startups, but the pace of those deals has picked up in recent years.
Take a look at the most interesting data points below.
Acquisitions by year
2013 has had an acquisition-focused year for Twitter, especially shown by its decisions to bring on We Are Hunted for Twitter Radio and Bluefin Labs for TV ventures. It has already made the same number of acquisitions in 2013 (nine) than it did in all of 2012, and there’s still plenty of time left in this year to eke out another company deal.
By funding round: mostly seed
This piece of data isn’t too surprising — picking up seed startups means getting new technology and talented engineers on the cheap. But Twitter is known to flash cash when the time is right, like its $350 million acquisition of mobile ad exchange company MoPub.
By Geography: Hello California
Also unsurprising is Twitter’s decision to pull its potential acquisition targets from the teeming startup hotbeds of California. Silicon Valley alone is flush with eager startups looking to peddle technologies, so the fact that one out of every two startups called California home isn’t that novel.
Twitter’s long acquisition history — especially before it started to grow very quickly in 2010 — shows that the company is not only shrewd when it comes to picking up technologies, but also in making strategic expansions. There’s no doubt that the company’s recent spate of acquisitions in the TV analytics space will be put to good use in its love affair with the TV set.
With a possible multibillion-dollar IPO ahead, it’s unlikely that Twitter will slow its acquisition strategy down.
via GigaOM http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/b-cAEuDLwfA/
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