Burrp! the local lifestyle listings company has been reportedly been acquired by Infomedia18 which is a part of the Network18 group. If one may recollect burrp! was funded by Haresh Chawla the CEO of Network18 group for an undisclosed sum. So this acquisition isn’t surprising. What is surprising though is the timing of the acquisition. Just a few days before the financial year end makes one think whether this was actually a hurriedly wrapped up decision rather than a planned one.
Bear in mind that these are tough times and given that burrp! was still building out its traction rather than earning big bucks from advertisers it would have been needing rounds of funding. It could be very possible that this acquisition was the fall out of a lack of funding from Haresh Chawla or the inability to raise funds from other sources rather than a planned move. We have sent our questions to deap ubhi founder of burrp! and are awaiting responses from his end.
In the meanwhile have a look at the WATShow below with Deap late last year where he talks about Burrp! no longer being an only online company.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-ZzKFQ-bK4
Rajiv,
This is definitely not “hurriedly wrapped up decision”. As, this speculations were doing rounds from past 2-3 months. It seems they announced it at financial year end.
Bang on Rajiv. Its a distress sale. Also what’s more is that some top management who were promised equity have not been given the same.
I feel bad that burrp had to sell out.. I mean I am a fan of burrp and would have liked them to be independant. Now Infomedia will screw the product and put tonnes of ads.. It Sucks!
@observer: We cant speculate on the equity till we get the actual status from deap of burrp.
@burrpguy: Well On the contrary Infomedia acquisition may just help burrp build a solid brand by some offline marketing.
@Sushil: Our sources close to burrp updated us that this decision if not hurriedly wrapped up was then not disclosed to the top management at burrp as well. Which is kinda wierd dont you think?