U
D

Conversation

the

09/28/12 | Uncategorized

Female Founders To Watch: Google Acquisitions

Celebrating Google’s birthday – and the female founders acquired by Google over the last 14 years.
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

This week, Google announced partnering with Women 2.0 with the launch of the new Google for Entrepreneurs program.

We celebrated Google’s 14th birthday and reflected on the 118 mergers and acquisitions made by Google over the last 14 years. The most recent two Google acquisitions of women-led ventures – Meebo and Wildfire Interactive – both have a female founder in the C-suite!

Here are half a dozen female founders and the tech companies they launched which have since been acquired by Google:

Anna Rosling Rönnlund (Co-Founder, Trendalyzer)
In February 2005, Anna Rosling Rönnlund co-founded Gapminder, a non-profit promoting sustainable global development. Google acquired Gapminder statistical software product Trendalyzer in March 2007. Trendalyzer has been merged into Google Analytics.

Claudia Carpenter (Founder, Upstartle)
Software engineer and serial entrepreneur Claudia Carpenter co-founded Upstartle, a small Silicon Valley company which made a word processor named Writely. Google acquired Upstartle in March 2006, and now Writely is Google Docs (now Drive).

Meg Hourihan (Co-Founder, Pyra Labs)
Meg Hourihan co-founded Pyra Labs with Evan Williams in August 1999. Pyra Labs created Blogger.com and was acquired by Google in February 2003. Her Twitter profile reads “Entrepreneur (blogger.com) taking a break and mom to 2.” Follow her on Twitter at @megnut.

Nina Zagat (Co-Founder, Zagat)
A husband-and-wife team of attorneys, Tim and Nina Zagat co-founded the restaurant review guide Zagat. Google acquired Zagat in September 2011 for $151 million. Zagat has been merged into Google Places and Google Maps. Follow her on Twitter at @NinaAndTimZagat.

Sandy Jen (Co-Founder & CTO, Meebo)
Software engineer Sandy Jen co-founded instant messaging tool Meebo in 2005 with Elaine Wherry and Seth Sternberg. Google acquired Meebo in June 2012 for $100 million. Follow her on Twitter at @meebosandy.

Victoria Ransom (Co-Founder & CEO, Wildfire Interactive)
Serial entrepreneur and businesswoman Victoria Ransom co-founded social media marketing company Wildfire Interactive in July 2008. Google acquired Wildfire Interactive in August 2012 for a rumored $350 million. Follow her on Twitter at @victoria_ransom.

Women 2.0 readers: Did we miss any female startup founders acquired by Google?Let us know in the comments!

About the writer: Angie Chang is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Women 2.0, a media company offering content, community and conferences for aspiring and current women innovators in technology. Our mission is to increase the number of female founders of technology startups. Previously, Angie held roles in product management and web UI design. Angie holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter at @thisgirlangie.

Editor

Editor

The Switch Editorial Team.

Straight to your inbox.

The best content on the future faces of tech and startups.

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

SHARE THIS STORY

NEW COHORT STARTS JANUARY 2024

Join the Angel Sessions

Develop strategic relationships, build skills, and increase your deal flow through our global angel group and investing course.

RELATED ARTICLES
[yarpp]