Viddy Sells Itself Short — for Less Than $20 Million

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JJ Aguhob, cofounder and CEO of Supernova

By Seth Fiegerman2014-01-15 23:34:19 UTC

Viddy, once a leading video-based social network, has been acquired after a year of struggling to compete with Twitter's Vine and (later) Instagram video.

Fullscreen, a YouTube network for brands and video creators, announced Wednesday that it had acquired Supernova — the new name Viddy had given itself in November — to bolster its mobile product offerings. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a source familiar with the situation told Mashable it was between $10 million and $20 million.

Ten million plus is better than nothing, but it's a poor return for a company that had previously raised more than $35 million in funding. Viddy was once reported to be valued at more than $300 million.

See also: The Vine Effect: How Twitter's App Is Impacting Social Video Startups

Ever since Twitter launched Vine in January, 2012, Viddy has struggled to better position itself. It updated its app with Vine-like recording features. It slashed staff and refocused.

It rebranded as Supernova and introduced two new social apps, with plans to launch more. Now, it appears to have settled for its best possible outcome: an acquisition.

From what we've heard, the acquisition process happened relatively quickly, within the last four or five weeks. Supernova and its board, some of whom were interested in pursuing an acquisition, had been in talks with three or four companies.

JJ Aguhob, Supernova's cofounder and CEO, is expected to head up mobile products at Fullscreen. “Our mission continues to be helping people create and share amazing content using elegant technology," Aguhob said in a statement. “Together with Fullscreen, we will create mobile video products that millions of users enjoy."

As part of the acquisition, Supernova's entire 12-person team will join Fullscreen and its three apps will live on, at least for now. We hear that Fullscreen is very interested in the two newer apps — Epic, for slow motion videos, and Clique, for sharing anonymous photos with friends — but less interested in the original Viddy app that most people know the company for.

When we last spoke with Aguhob in November, he explained the decision to rebrand as Supernova thus: "We experienced a stellar explosion. That energy and mass still exists in the universe and it's starting to either create new life forms in other universes or starting to create new stars, which felt like an appropriate analogy to our existence and our journey."

Suprenova's team may live on — but Viddy's star appears to be fading out.

Image: Supernova

Topics: apps, Business, Startups, viddy