Yodle, founded at Penn with early backing by MentorTech Ventures, acquired by Web.com for $300 million plus $42 million in future payments

Tom Paine

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Web.com announced an agreement today to acquire Yodle, a digital marketing firm focused on local marketing. The price is $300 million in cash, plus $42 million in future payments to be paid out over the two years following the purchase.

New York-based Yodle has 1,400 employees and over $200 million in annual revenue, according to Web.com's release. It was founded by John Berkowitz, Nathaniel Stevens (both from Penn) and Ben Rubenstein in 2005 at Penn. Only Berkowitz appears to still be with the company. Stevens left the company in 2010 to finish school at Wharton.

MentorTech Ventures was an early investor, and as MentorTech's Brett Topche tweeted last night:

Congrats @MentorTechVC portfolio co @Yodle on the exit! Come a long way from when you worked in our conference room! https://t.co/Shk3btxIXG

— Brett Topche (@BrettTopche) February 12, 2016

Yodle filed for an IPO in 2014, but postponed it.

Web.com Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: WEB), based in Jacksonville, is a provider of Internet services and online marketing solutions for small businesses. It said in a statement that on a combined basis for 2015, Web.com would have had over $765 million in non-GAAP revenues with 50% of its revenue generated from faster growing value added digital marketing solutions.