Wink To Do Partial Stock Repurchase
To all our users, we wanted you to be the first to know that we are restructuring the investments in Wink.
This is a press release that will go out tomorrow:
WINK ANNOUNCES PARTIAL STOCK REPURCHASE
Majority of Investors Recommit as Company Focuses on People Search Engine
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – March 20, 2007 – Wink, the first people search engine for online profiles, today announced it has repurchased some shares of its stock from investors. As part of this buyback, a few existing investors, have increased their stake in Wink. Greylock Partners has reduced its stake, but remains the largest shareholder outside of the company. The majority of investors in the company will continue to hold their existing positions.
“We refocused the company last November, launching the industry’s first people search engine for online profiles and social networks, which currently includes over 150 million people across five major social networks - MySpace, Bebo, Live Spaces, Friendster and LinkedIn,” said Michael Tanne, founder and CEO of Wink. “As people’s time and attention continues to shift to the web, a people search engine focused on web addresses, not street addresses, is crucial for finding, connecting and staying in touch with friends and family.”
“Wink has been an early proponent of the power of people to improve Web search,” said Venky Harinarayan, Founding Partner of Cambrian Ventures, and founder of Kosmix and Junglee. “During the last few months, Wink has focused on allowing people to search across the most popular social networks and communities to find others on-line. We believe in Michael and his team and are maintaining our position in the company.”
“We support Michael and his team in their development of a people search engine for the next generation of the Internet,” said David Sze, Partner, Greylock Partners. “While this transaction partially reduced Greylock’s investment, we remain a major investor in the company.”
“I believe this direction provides Wink with a significant business opportunity and have decided to maintain my stake in the company as a result of its focus on people search.” Said Pete Bodine, an early investor in Wink and experienced venture capitalist.
Wink provides a unique way to find people online. Wink People Search is the first search engine dedicated to searching people’s online presence such as their profiles, blogs, social networks and other online communities. Because the information Wink searches has been published by people themselves, it is much more reflective of their interests and how they want to be found online. More than just name search, Wink People Search also provides several ways to search information people have published about themselves, including their location (no street addresses), school, interests, affiliations, musical tastes, age, occupation and more.
Using Wink, people can also create profiles that link together all the websites that define their online interests. Others searching for these people can readily find these services such as social network profiles, photo sites, blogs and more.
ABOUT WINK
Wink is a Social Search Engine that makes it easier to find people and the information that matters most to them. Wink People Search lets you search for people across social networks and on-line communities across the Web. Wink’s team of experienced search engineers come from Yahoo, Inktomi, Excite, and Google.
Tags: peoplesearch, wink.com, wink, people search
Comments are closed.