SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Aug. 19, 2013) – GoDaddy announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Locu, a San Francisco-based company that helps local merchants ‘get found’ online. Started in 2011 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Locu is used by more than 30,000 businesses, including restaurants, spas, salons, accountants, photographers and home-remodeling companies, to promote their services across Locu’s partner network. Locu reaches more than 200-million consumers per month through its partnerships with Yelp, YP.com, Foursquare, TripAdvisor and Facebook.
GoDaddy is the world’s top platform for small businesses. The acquisition advances the GoDaddy strategy to deliver effortlessly beautiful digital identities that help small businesses get more customers.
“Locu epitomizes what GoDaddy is all about – both companies are hell-bent on helping the ‘little guy’ thrive on the Internet,” said GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. “Locu is comprised of amazing technologists who have taken the very complex problem of helping small businesses ‘get found’ wherever consumers are looking and are solving it through elegant, technology-based services. We are welcoming some of the brightest technology minds on the planet to our GoDaddy family.”
The two companies have been working closely together since May when GoDaddy integrated Locu into its easy-to-use Website Builder. With the integration, service-oriented businesses have a simple solution to automatically create, manage and update their menu and service lists in a way that gives business owners complete control of their digital identity, whether they’re using a smartphone or a desktop computer. “We couldn’t think of a more powerful platform to accelerate Locu’s growth,” said Rene Reinsberg, CEO and co-founder at Locu. “We each have a core mission to help local businesses succeed. Our team developed deep respect for GoDaddy during our initial partnership and was impressed by the execution speed and quality, its industry-leading customer support and the passionate, experienced new management team who puts ‘product first.’ All of this further positions GoDaddy as the ‘go-to’ provider in the small business space.”
“Over the last few months, Locu has played an incredible role in helping grow the Presence and Commerce business through our Website Builder partnership,” said Raj Mukherjee, GM of Presence and Commerce at GoDaddy. “The Locu team will play a much bigger role in helping GoDaddy’s small businesses reach their customers more effectively and at lower cost.” Locu will continue to operate out of its San Francisco and Cambridge, Mass. offices and is actively hiring for both locations. All of Locu’s employees are joining the GoDaddy team.
GoDaddy serves more than 11 million customers worldwide, mostly small businesses. GoDaddy employs more than 3,800 people around the world and opened new offices in Sunnyvale, California and Kirkland, Washington this year.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Connect with GoDaddy on Facebook & Twitter.
To connect with Locu on Facebook & Twitter.
Read why our customers recommend GoDaddy.
About GoDaddy GoDaddy is the world's largest domain name provider, Web hosting provider and new SSL certificate provider, focused on helping small businesses grow larger. GoDaddy provides dozens of cloud-based services and is the largest worldwide mass-market hosting provider by annual revenue according to 451 Research (Mass-Market Hosting Report-Fall 2012) and is the #1 provider of net-new SSL certificates for 2012, according to the Netcraft, LTD Secure Server Survey. To learn more about the company, visit GoDaddy.com/PR.
About Locu Locu helps local businesses be found. When businesses add their street address, phone number, hours of operation, and menus / service lists to Locu, Locu gets them on the map in front of over 200 million potential customers online. Instead of having to use multiple sites to manage their business listings and showcase their products and services, businesses can update just once with Locu, and Locu will publish changes in real-time to their web and mobile sites as well as to partner sites including Yelp, Foursquare, OpenTable, YP, TripAdvisor and Facebook. Over 30,000 businesses including restaurants, spas, salons, accountants, photographers, and home remodeling companies are using Locu to promote their businesses online. Locu was founded by MIT graduates and is backed by investors including General Catalyst Capital Partners, Lowercase, Lightbank, and SV Angel.
About GoDaddy
GoDaddy's mission is to radically shift the global economy toward small businesses by empowering people to easily start, confidently grow and successfully run their own ventures. With more than 12 million customers worldwide and more than 59 million domain names under management, GoDaddy gives small business owners the tools to name their idea, build a beautiful online presence, attract customers and manage their business. To learn more about the company, visit www.GoDaddy.com.
- GoDaddy Operating Company, LLC - Copyright © 2015 GoDaddy.com, LLC All Rights Reserved.
Contact
Elizabeth Driscoll, VP Public Relations
480.505.8878
Elizabeth @GoDaddy.com or Google+