Webs.com Not So Free: Sold To Vistaprint For $117.5 Million

Frank Gruber December 19, 2011 Tweet

Today Webs.com was acquired by the Dutch printing company Vistaprint for a reported $117.5 million ($100 million in cash and $17.5 in stock). Webs.com was started in 2001 in Silver Spring, Maryland by then-college students Haroon Mokhtarzada and his brother Zeki. Previously called Freewebs, the product helps people create simple websites.

The company raised $11 million in funding from Novak Biddle Venture Partners and Columbia Capital in 2006 and eventually dropped “free” from it’s name. Nigel Morris, the co-founder of Capital One Financial Services and former CEO and president of Capital One Financial Corporation, is also an investor. Shervin Pishevar is also a former President and current board member.

They now offer a number of services, including PageModo, which helps people create Facebook pages, and ContactMe, a simple CRM system. Webs reportedly has millions of active users and over 100,000 paying subscribers.

Webs CEO, Haroon Mokhtarzada, had this to say about the acquisition:

“Our companies share a common vision for the future of micro business marketing, and bring complementary products and competencies to the table. We believe Webs will flourish as a part of Vistaprint, providing significant value to both our customers and our employees.”

I’ve been a Vistaprint business card customer for quite some time, so, from my perspective, it makes a lot of sense for the company to turn to Webs.com as a way to offer its customers additional business-related services. Given the current focus on entrepreneurship in this country, a complete offering of easy to use, low barrier of entry service offerings at extremely competitive prices really hits an economic sweet spot.

Vistaprint is a publicly traded company and closed at $30.21 today on the NASDAQ. The deal is expected to be completed within one month.