NEW YORK, March 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Meetup, one
of the world's first social media platforms and the only one
dedicated to groups that meet in-person or online during times of
crisis, today announced that the company has been acquired. The
consortium of investors is led by Kevin
Ryan's AlleyCorp and includes mission-driven private funds
and accomplished technology executives. Ryan joins as Chairman of
the board. David Siegel will stay on
as CEO of Meetup, board member, and he will continue to lead the
company.
Meetup will divest from The We Company ("WeWork") and operate
independently after two-and-a-half years as a subsidiary. The
company will continue to service its growing 49 million members and
over 230,000 organizers, who collectively produce an average of
15,000 in-person events daily. Meetup's enterprise business
solutions will also continue under Meetup Pro, a community building
and engagement platform with more than 1,500 clients including
Adobe, Google, Microsoft Azure, IBM, Twitter, and Looker and
hundreds of entrepreneurs.
"This acquisition provides the long-term capital to ensure that
Meetup focuses on what is most important: the organizers who make
Meetup successful, our passionate members, and our dedicated
employees," said David Siegel, CEO
of Meetup. "We are excited to continue on our mission of empowering
personal growth through real human connections, and I'm happy to
have brought in a team of smart investors who share and support the
same values."
"We are confident in the enormous potential of the business and
Meetup's mission of bringing people together in substantive ways,"
said Kevin Ryan of AlleyCorp, who is
the lead investor and Chairman of the Board. "We are very excited
to collectively serve and grow Meetup's extensive and incredibly
engaged user base."
A predecessor to Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and
Twitter, Meetup shares a similar global member reach, throughout
193 countries. Contrastingly, Meetup's business is built around
using online social media to help people be more social offline —
without using its users' private data for the purpose of targeted
advertising. In 2019, Meetup drove 30 million hours of real-life
human connection and experienced a 40% growth in its enterprise
business. In 2020, the company updated its policy to allow
organizers to host events online during the Coronavirus
pandemic.
Meetup was founded in 2002 as a platform for finding and
building local communities. While the company and its user base
have significantly expanded and evolved since then, the mission has
remained the same. Meetup will always foster human connection. This
acquisition will propel Meetup to continue exploring and growing
innovative new ways of bringing communities together.
"We thank David and the entire Meetup team for their many
contributions to WeWork over the past two and a half years," said
Rohit Dave, Head of Corporate
Development, WeWork. "Our decision to divest Meetup aligns with
WeWork's renewed focus on the company's core workspace business and
marks a positive step forward for both WeWork and Meetup."
About Meetup
Meetup is the leading social media platform dedicated to connecting
people in person or online during times of crisis. Established in
2002, its mission is to help people grow and achieve their goals
through real-life, human connections. From professional networking
to craft brewery crawls to coding workshops and more, people use
Meetup to get out from behind their screens to meet new people in
real life who share those same passions or professional
aspirations. Meetup uses technology and social media to help people
get away from technology and become more social. Join Meetup to try
something new, or to start a group and find other passionate
people, at Meetup (https://www.meetup.com/) and follow company news
on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (@Meetup). For enterprise
business solutions visit Meetup Pro
(https://www.meetup.com/pro).
Meetup supports 49 million members, 330,000 groups, and 100,000
events per week in 193 countries and 2,000 cities around the
world.
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SOURCE Meetup