Last Friday Yahoo purchased Bread, adding it to their running docket of startup acquisitions. Aside from adopting six engineers and product managers into their ranks, Yahoo has shut down Bread and their products, Bread Social and Bread Oven.
Alan Chan, formerly CEO of Bread, left a goodbye note on the website detailing how Bread will support links their publishers created for the next 30 days. After that, however, he encourages everybody to swap out their Bread links with new ones from bit.ly.
Initially launched in 2011, Bread was operating with the goal to help people using social media and publishers better monetize their online content. Their short links and ads are something that Yahoo could very well utilize in its own ad tech space.
“In Yahoo, we found a company that shares our vision,” writes Chan in his note. “We will be working [with Yahoo] on developing next-generation solutions for social and mobile publishers and advertisers.”
There are a lot of rumors going around that Bread was running low on money and shopping themselves around to different companies after raising an initial $3.5 million. However, the important thing to recognize here is the value in being bought by a large scale company; it helps a startup save face, repay investors, and bring in a little bit of money.
Ultimately, the terms of the agreement remain undisclosed to the public. Regardless, this is a great example of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer making intelligent, well planned business moves in an effort to turn Yahoo around and bring it up to speed.