This is the second recent acquisition announcement for Hearst Interactive Media – UGO for around $100 million last month, and tonight they are announcing the acquisition of Kaboodle, a social shopping service that launched in late 2005.
Kaboodle, founded by Manish Chandra, Keiron McCammon, Chetan Pungaliya, closed a key distribution deal with eBay a year ago. Comscore numbers show rapid growth, with 2 million or so unique monthly visitors currently.
The acquisition price is not being disclosed, but we’re hearing it was somewhere between $30 – $40 million, all cash. The company raised three rounds of financing totaling $5 million from Shea Ventures, Kanwal Rekhi, Jeff Clavier, Ron Conway, Garage Ventures, Georges Harik, Rajeev Motwani, Iggy Fanlo and others.
One other thing we’ve heard – investor Ron Conway was “instrumental” in putting this deal together.