US-based professional networking service BranchOut has sold its assets to human resources software company 1-Page for $5.4m after BranchOut’s staff were acqui-hired by media company Hearst.
BranchOut had raised $49m across three rounds which included Norwest Venture Partners, the venture capital firm funded by bank Wells Fargo, Accel Partners, Mayfield Fund, Redpoint Ventures, Floodgate, Ooga Labs and a range of angel investors.
BranchOut, founded in 2010, had been aiming to develop a professional networking service inside Facebook but struggled to monetise its business model when Facebook changed the rules on how apps could contact users.
The team then focused on developing a mobile chat startup, Talk.io, which was unrelated to BranchOut’s original platform. Talk.io was acquired by media company Hearst in September 2014 and the team now works at Hearst as its digital product development group.
The payment is being split into a $2m cash payment and 7.5 million shares, to be issued in 12 months. 1-Page will integrate BranchOut’s services into its own offering and make it available to its recruitment clients.