Michael Birch paid $1 million to buy back the social networking site Bebo which he founded in 2005.
Birch announced the acquisition through Twitter.
We just bought Bebo back for $1m. Can we actually re-invent it? Who knows, but it will be fun trying... Michael Birch (@mickbirch)
He bought the social networking site from The Monkey Inferno, a personal incubator which develops internet projects. Well, the incubator site receives funding from him and his wife anyway.
Birch sold Bebo to AOL in 2008 for $850 million which BBC dubbed as ‘"one of the worst deals ever made in the dotcom era". AOL decided to continue the acquisition hoping it would fare against Facebook. Three years later, AOL gave up and decided to shut down Bebo selling it to Criterion Capital Partners in 2010 for less than $10 million.
In May 2013, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was offered to the public through auction in February. The auction was conducted by Burke Capital Corp. in which Birch bought Bebo for $1 million as a representative for Monkey Inferno. Within Monkey Inferno, three bidders compete for the site in which Birch won.
It is interesting how Birch will give a new life to Bebo despite of the huge competition that awaits him. Bebo lost over Facebook years ago but Twitter is also a competition. The social media platform is overcrowded and there is no guarantee if there is still space for Bebo.
Monkey CEO Monkey Inferno, who admitted that he was one of the internal bidders, confirmed with TechCrunch that they have started working on the reinvention of the site. However, he did not give further details about the direction Bebo is taking but mentioned that they have hired mobile developers as part of the project.
It seems that Bebo will be back soon with a mobile version.
