Since 2007, Facebook has acquired nearly 50 companies. While many of the early acquisitions were deemed "acquihires," some of Facebook's more recent purchases point towards a new strategy focused on both immediate value and long-term bets on the future. I've speculated about Facebook's moves since I started "watching" the company back in 2006. Their acquisition strategy has evolved over the years and it is hard to accurately predict the company's future acquisitions, but history provides a few patterns worth noting. Facebook is becoming a metaplatform - a conglomerate with multiple interconnected platforms - and its acquisitions are a hint of what we can expect the Facebook of the future to look like. So I did a little research using Wikipedia and CrunchBase data and the results were interesting enough to want to share them. This infographic shows some of the highlights. A few more notes about this at: http://socialnerdia.com/blog/2014/4/26/infographic-facebook-acquisition-analysis Let me know your thoughts on the comments below and via Twitter @socialnerdia.

1. 0
2
4
6
8
10
JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC
ACQUISITION TIMING
NOTABLE ACQUISITIONS
2007 Parakey
ConnectU
2009 FriendFeed
2010 Drop.io
2011 Snaptu
2013 Atlas
2014 WhatsApp
LOCATION OF ACQUIRED COMPANIES
2008
80%
UNITED STATES
47%
CALIFORNIA, USA
6%
ISRAEL
14%
REST OF WORLD
FACEBOOK:ACQUIRING
THE METAPLATFORM
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA & CRUNCHBASE, APRIL 2014
MORE: WWW.SOCIALNERDIA.COM
BY: @SOCIALNERDIA
REPORTED SALE RANGE
COMPANY NAMES
1-Word
Names
2-Word
Names
3-Word
Names
82%
14%
4%
71%
Undisclosed:
6%
More than $1B
10%
$16MM to $1B:
12%
$2.5MM to $15MM:
ACQUIRED CATEGORY / TEAM EXPERTISE
( Note: These are not mutually exclusive – Multiple companies are included in more than one category )
HARDWARE: 2%
GAMING: 4%
SOCIAL: 39%
MOBILE: 45%
MESSAGING: 10%
ANALYTICS: 10%
UTILITY / BACK-END: 35%
GIFTING: 2%
PHOTOS: 6%
LOYALTY: 2%
LOCATION: 6%
DESIGN: 8%
ADVERTISING: 4%
2% 2%
2%10%
18%
22%
16%
27%
( As of April 10, 2014 )
1
1
1
8
11
9
5
13
6%
10%
16%
12%
10%
8% 8%
6%
0%
4%
6%
NOTABLE ACQUIHIRED TALENT
Sam Lessin
Drop.io
Bret Taylor
FriendFeed
Justin Shaffer
Hot Potato
Ben Davenport
Beluga
Josh Williams
Gowalla
Kevin Systrom
Instagram
Jan Koum
WhatsApp
Palmer Luckey
Oculus VR
No longer at Facebook Still at Facebook
2012 Glancee
12%
( Note: 47% of all FB acquisitions were located in California – That is approx 59% of U.S. acquisitions )
( Note: All groupings include compound words – i.e. “WhatsApp” is counted as a 1-word name )
( Rest of World: Canada, UK, Finland, Malaysia, India, Netherlands )
Andrea Vaccari
Glancee
Sampo Karjalainen
ProtoGeo Oy
FITNESS: 2%
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014