Waltham's Lycos Sells for $36 Million

In the United States, if you ask someone to tell you the name of the first search engine that comes to mind, odds are you will get one of three answers: Google, Yahoo, or Bing. If you think back to just the mid-nineties, though, predicting the answer to that question would have been far harder, considering the varied number of search engines that were scrambling for their share of the market. This week, Lycos, a search engine based out of Waltham, Massachusetts that you may not have heard about in years, sold for $36 million to India’s Ybrant Digital. (Image courtesy: lycos.com)

“Lycos needs no introduction, we are excited to bring in the Lycos properties into our fold,” said Suresh Reddy, chairman and CEO of Ybrant Digital. “The quality of content and tools offered by Lycos has always attracted the best of the consumers across the world. Our goal is to combine the benefits of Ybrant’s global network with what Lycos has to offer in creating a compelling global destination for our advertising clients worldwide. Coupled with our offerings for advertisers, we do present new products to our local users worldwide.”

While not generally viewed as one of the big players in the search engine arena in the U.S., Lycos still reports receiving 12 to 15 million unique visitors per month in the nation. Beyond its search engine capabilities, Lycos also offers video sharing, social networking, blogging, web hosting, online games, and email. Worldwise, Lycos is a top 25 internet destination, with a global reach of 60 million unique visitors per month. (Image courtesy: http://bit.ly/bISFkP)

“Our goal is to combine the benefits of Ybrant's global network with what Lycos has to offer in creating a compelling global destination for our advertising clients worldwide,” explained CEO Reddy.

Although Lycos may have passed its prime in the United States, it would be hard for anyone to argue that Waltham’s Lycos is not a success, considering its substantial world-wide reach. Even if the search engine does not focus on recapturing the U.S. market while under its new leadership, it appears as if the company will have no trouble remaining profitable in the international market.

[Sources: http://bit.ly/9vkYFs, http://bit.ly/bPVHvs, http://bit.ly/c26wdJ]

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