FriendFeed says it had no pressure from Benchmark to sell

FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit said the company had no pressure from Benchmark Capital to sell to Facebook.

“We just realized this opportunity wasn’t going to be around forever,” Buchheit said. “As we talked to more and more people, we came to realize that this is something that we should seriously consider.”

Benchmark held a minority interest in the company while Buchheit and fellow ex-Googler Sanjeev Singh owned the bulk of FriendFeed, he said in a call. Because many of FriendFeed’s employees were early Googlers, the only investor that would require a large financial return on investment would be Benchmark, but Buchheit said there was “no pressure” from the firm. The company raised a $5 million round in February of last year (led by Buchheit and Singh, with participation from Benchmark) and has “most of its funding still in the bank,” Buchheit said.

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