- Social media platform Meetup announced it has been acquired by a consortium of investors led by AlleyCorp
Social media platform Meetup announced it has been acquired by a consortium of investors led by AlleyCorp, which is an organization headed by serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan that founds and builds companies. David Siegel will remain on as CEO of Meetup and board member.
Ryan is known as being a founder of Zola.com, Workframe, MongoDB, Gilt Groupe, and Business Insider. And he also served as President and CEO of DoubleClick between the years 1996 and 2005. And Ryan is joining as Chairman of the board.
Meetup is going to divest from The We Company (WeWork) and operate independently after two-and-a-half years as a subsidiary. And the company will continue to service its growing 49 million members and over 230,000 organizers — who collectively produce an average of 15,000 in-person events per day.
Meetup’s enterprise business solutions is going to continue under Meetup Pro, which is a community building and engagement platform with over 1,500 clients, including Adobe, Google, Microsoft Azure, IBM, Twitter, Looker, and hundreds of entrepreneurs.
Last year, Meetup drove 30 million hours of real-life human connection and experienced a 40% growth in its enterprise business. And in 2020, the company updated its policy to allow organizers to host events online during the coronavirus pandemic.
Meetup was originally founded in 2002 as a platform for finding and building local communities. And this acquisition is expected to propel Meetup to continue exploring and growing innovative new ways of bringing communities together.
Key Quotes:
“This acquisition provides the long-term capital to ensure that Meetup focuses on what is most important: the organizers who make Meetup successful, our passionate members, and our dedicated employees. We are excited to continue on our mission of empowering personal growth through real human connections, and I’m happy to have brought in a team of smart investors who share and support the same values.”
-Meetup CEO David Siegel
“We are confident in the enormous potential of the business and Meetup’s mission of bringing people together in substantive ways. We are very excited to collectively serve and grow Meetup’s extensive and incredibly engaged user base.”
-Kevin Ryan of AlleyCorp
“We thank David and the entire Meetup team for their many contributions to WeWork over the past two and a half years. Our decision to divest Meetup aligns with WeWork’s renewed focus on the company’s core workspace business and marks a positive step forward for both WeWork and Meetup.”
-Rohit Dave, Head of Corporate Development at WeWork
