Local reviews site Yelp, based in San Francisco, has bought its biggest rival in Europe, Qype, for $50 million in cash and shares.
The deal sees Yelp pay Euro 18.6m in cash as well as 970,000 in shares for the Europe-based business bringing total value of the transaction to approximately $50m.
The combined brand platform will add Qype's 2 million reviews of restaurants, products and services, and 15 million unique visitors per month across 13 countries to Yelp's 30 million user-generated review and 25 million unique visitors per month.
In a statement, founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said:
“Qype’s established European sales force will also bring more local business owners into the Yelp ecosystem, which in turn will bolster our mission to connect people Yelp CEO with great local businesses all over the world.”
That means it's payday for founder European VCs. "Done deal, excited for the Qype team and community," tweeted Frederic Court of Advent Venture Partners, which just saw another happy exit from its portfolio.
Also a big day for Qype founder Stephan Uhrenbacher.
But there was some grousing, of course. Some people saw this "safe exit" as a reason why Europe isn't as risk-taking as US's startup system, where founders often try to be brave and compete.