Sometimes I think we all forget how important a healthy big company ethos is for our industry. The big four on the Internet – Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL – all provide the lion’s share of revenues to the industry via check-writing from an AdSense or Advertising.com-like services but they also provide the acquisition engines to provide exit paths for smaller companies. These acquisitions help the larger concerns remain vital, to grow and to provide new management. They also provide venture capitalists with a way to get liquid on their investments in smaller growth companies.

I was reading a piece in Portfolio Magazine and it reminded me of how aggressive Yahoo had been in terms of buying up smaller companies during the last dozen years or so.

Check this out:

1997 - Net Controls

1998 - Classic Games, ViaWeb, Yoyodyne

1999 - Broadcast.com, Geocities

2000 - eGroups, Kimo

2001 - Sold.com, LaunchMedia

2002 - HotJobs, Inktomi

2003 - Overture

2004 - Kelkoo, Musicmatch

2005 - Alibaba, Flickr, Del.icio.us

2006 - Kenet Works, Wretch

2007 - Right Media, BlueLithium

2008  FoxyTunes, Maven Networks

In all, Yahoo has injected more than $15 billion in acquisitions in the last ten years and $25 billion in total on all investments and acquisitions over the years. They have made more than 50 acquisitions and investments in total. They have created a great ecosystem; helped consolidate piece parts of the Internet to help drive their growth; and provided many riches for founders and for VC firms alike. We should all be pulling for their success.