LivingSocial is getting acquired by its long-time rival, Groupon, according to Groupon's quarterly report. The news comes after years of selling off subsidiary companies and laying off employees, including half of all its employees in March.
The company had pivoted toward a more business-facing service when it hired former eBay executive Gautam Thakar as CEO after the previous CEO, Tim O'Shaughnessy, went to work as president of Graham Holdings. When Thakar joined, financial problems were already apparent, and the event space at 918 F Street had already closed. Thakar turned the company to tailored, smartphone-enabled discount systems for events and other activities over the coupon emails that had built the company's fortune when it launched in 2007. The company, which had raised $934.7 million in funding, started to slip as interest in daily coupon emails waned.
“I suspect that the Daily Deal became, which it began as tactic, the company’s strategy," Thakar told DC Inno in a previous interview. "We probably all got carried away with the Daily Deal being the thing, as opposed to helping merchants and consumers get more demand. When you have this accelerated growth, you step back at some point and realize that it was a tactic not a thing to solve everything.”
We've reached out to LivingSocial and will update when we know more.
