Yahoo sells Kelkoo, Paris-based shopping comparison engine

Written on 21st November 2008                                                                                                              COMMENT
Mircea Goia, Next Web US Webtipr

Having big problems at home where the stock is still plummeting Yahoo, finally, sells Kelkoo, the Paris-based shopping comparison search engine, according to Techcrunch.

Kelkoo was bought by Yahoo in 2004 for 475 million euros. Sadly enough, Yahoo couldn’t make it more profitable and known among other international shopping comparison search engines and thus Kelkoo usage has fallen down the hill (see the general trend record on Google Trends – the trends might vary for different Kelkoo domains).

Nothing new here, some of the acquisitions Yahoo made had the same fate…falling down to the competition.

The new acquirer of Kelkoo is Jamplant, a UK-based private equity firm (some details about this company here) and the amount they have paid is around 100 million euros.

Kelkoo will still continue to power Y! Shopping, Cars and Travel.

You can read the announcement from the former Kelkoo CEO Pierre Chappaz here (in French) and here is the internal email Glen Drury, Kelkoo’s managing director for the UK, sent to the employees.