J&J swallows mother social networking site, Maya's Mom
The mother-focused site BabyCenter, owned by giant J&J, has acquired Maya’s Mom, a Palo Alto, Calif. social networking site for mothers.
This is the first sign of consolidation in the inflated sector of Mom 2.0.
A host of sites, from Minti to Mommybuzz, MothersClick, CafeMom and Momjunction have launched recently, raised cash, or otherwise moved aggressively to tap this niche. Internet sites focused on women are enjoying a boom, as more women come online: See our coverage of the mom sector here. CafeMom raised $5 million just last week.
Maya’s Mom was smart, raising a light round of angel funding from well known tech players, including Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, Yahoo exec Jeff Ralston, Tickle founder James Currier, True Ventures and more. Raising minimal cash makes it easier to accept an acquisition offer. Sites raising lots of cash find it difficult because their investors set their expectations for a large return, and hold out for a price that may never come.
As we wrote at the time, the company describes itself as a cross between Yahoo Answers and Facebook. It is centered around the asking and answering of questions related to parenting.
The price is undisclosed. BabyCenter will use the company’s social networking technology across its own site, though Maya’s Mom will remain separate.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
