Red Tricycle, a decade-old parent-focused media startup founded in Seattle and backed by top venture capital firms, today announced its acquisition by Tinybeans.
Founded in 2010 by Jacqui Boland, Red Tricycle attracts more than 20 million monthly users who use the website for parenting advice, ideas, tips, and more. Boland started the company when she was pregnant with her son, creating an online city guide for new parents who wanted to discover restaurants, day trips, events and other activities for families.
Tinybeans, based in New York City and Sydney, also targets parents with a platform that enables private sharing of photos and other content.
“A perfect pair: Red Tricycle helps you create memories, and as always, you can rely on Tinybeans to safely share and save them, forever!” Tinybeans wrote in a blog post.
The 8-year-old company, which is publicly traded on the Australian Stock Exchange, paid $6.5 million to acquire Red Tricycle, plus shares of Tinybeans stock.
“Red Tricycle is a successful and trusted parenting platform with highly developed web and email capabilities,” Eddie Geller, Tinybeans CEO, said in a statement. “Combined with Tinybeans we will have far more users with extended reach and an upgraded value proposition for our brand partners.”
This is the latest in a string of similar niche digital media acquisitions, from Vice Media’s $400 million purchase of Refinery29 or Group Nine’s deal to buy PopSugar.
“There has been a ton of consolidation in the digital media space in a race for scale, but we are taking a different approach and believe the privacy and personalization are the future of digital media, particularly when it comes to parents, which is why Tinybeans is such a good fit,” Boland told GeekWire.
Red Tricycle raised more than $3 million from investors including Seattle-based Trilogy Equity Partners and Maveron. CrunchFund, 500 Startups, Jason Calacanis, Bob Pittman, Paul Buchheit, Serena Glover, and others also invested. Online retail giant Zulily made an investment in the company as well.
The startup had a headquarters in San Francisco from 2010 to 2017 but has operated a remote team for the past three years. All of the company’s 20 employees, including Boland, will join the Tinybeans team.
Source: Geek Wire
