AOL has sold travel blog Gadling to US-based travel intelligence media company Skift for ‘significantly less than $10m’ according to TechCrunch.
AOL acquired Gadling in October 2005 as part of the $25m deal to secure its parent company, Weblogs. The deal includes the signing of a partnership that will allow Skift to use the mapping platform operated by Mapquest, which AOL acquired for $1.1bn in 1999.
Skift will utilise Galding’s web presence and social media feeds, creating consumer advice and generalised content, while diversifying its own business-focused travel news updates.
Rafat Ali, founder and CEO of Skift, said: “We will take over Gadling’s extensive online presence, from the website to its popular social media feeds, and build it as a news-you-can-use companion to the business-focused Skift site.
“We plan to use Gadling as an industry research test-bed for consumer travel interests and habits.”
Skift was founded in January 2012 by Ali, also the founder of PaidContent.org, and Jason Clampet. The New York-based company received $1.1m of seed funding in May 2013 from various investors including Growlab Ventures and MESA+, with further funds from TLabs in August 2013.