With the exception of Tumblr, the majority of Yahoo’s 12 acquisitions since CEO Marissa Mayer took the helm in October 2012 have consisted of smaller acqui-hires or tuck-ins. And there are three venture capital firms who’ve invested in two or more of Yahoo’s acquisitions – TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund, early stage firm True Ventures, and Google Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Mayer’s alma mater, Google.
CrunchFund’s three investments in acquired Yahoo companies include social polling site GoPollGo, mobile recommendation engine Stamped and Tumblr which CrunchFund bought shares of in a secondary market transaction. Meanwhile, both investments seeded by Google Ventures, which also includes Stamped as well as task sharing app Astrid, fall into the category of mobile talent acquisitions.
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