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Party planning website operator Punchbowl Software Inc. of Framingham has acquired the assets of the group travel website ImIn.com from its parent GroupGo LLC of Waltham for an undisclosed amount.
Punchbowl, which operates the website MyPunchbowl.com, will incorporate ImIn.com into MyPunchbowl.com, which it is recasting as a local vendor portal for the party planning market. According to Punchbowl officials, none of the founders or management of ImIn.com will join Punchbowl.
Backed by New York-based Contour Venture Partners, Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corp., and the eCoast Angel Network, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based angel investment group, Punchbowl last raised funds in September of 2008, bringing in $2.1 million in its first round. Including a previous angel round, the company has taken in approximately $3 million total, said Matt Douglas, co-founder and CEO.
It was the code behind ImIn.com that was the main attraction for Punchbowl, Douglas said. Developing a complex and robust data infrastructure is “what ImIn did really well for the travel industry,” he said. “One of the things they did really well was search and search is complex.”
In September of this year, Punchbowl added Mike Ford, formerly founder and CEO of social-local networking site TownConnect and the founder of Computer.com, as vice president of business development. The company now has about a dozen employees, according to Douglas, who said Punchbowl is growing and always looking for the next brilliant Ruby-on-Rails developer.
While he wouldn’t talk about the financial details of the purchase, Douglas did say that the deal was done without raising more money. “Our revenues have ramped nicely this year and we're able to use internal assets,” he said.
Punchbowl was co-founded in 2006 by Douglas, a former product development manager for Adobe Systems Inc. In 2007, Douglas projected the website to generate $98,000 in revenue that year and $407,000 during 2008. As to future funding rounds, Douglas said, “We are currently getting a lot of inbound interest, and at the right time we will certainly raise another round if the terms are right.”
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