Free at Last, StumbleUpon Is Free at Last

Two years after Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith sold StumbleUpon to Ebay, they've rounded up some investors and bought StumbleUpon back. YOINK!

Earlier this year, StumbleUpon hit 7 million registered users, which was then 50 percent higher than most estimates of Twitter's users. Twitter's numbers have since skyrocketed, leaving StumbleUpon struggling to catch up.

It will be nice to have StumbleUpon back on its own. We won't have to wonder what sneaky monetization tactics Ebay might come up with and Ebay has its hands full with Skype wanting to go indie as well.

Here is the full press release:

StumbleUpon Goes Independent; Backed by Founders and New Investors

April 13, 2009 - StumbleUpon, the best way to discover new content on the Internet, today announced that after nearly 2 years as a subsidiary of eBay Inc., it has returned to the ranks of an investor-backed startup. StumbleUpon is now backed by the original company founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, as well as a number of well-known investors including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners, and August Capital. Camp takes on the role of CEO of StumbleUpon.
“We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,” said Camp. “This change makes it possible for StumbleUpon to continue to innovate and focus on becoming the Web’s largest recommendation service.”

“StumbleUpon helps users discover the best of the web – it’s a way to find interesting content you wouldn’t think to search for,” said Shriram. “StumbleUpon’s personalized recommendation engine brings serendipity back to websurfing, and lets users sift through socially-endorsed content with a single click.”

StumbleUpon will remain focused on helping people discover interesting content by increasing the accessibility of the StumbleUpon service and the quality of recommendations. In addition, StumbleUpon has plans for several new products and features to be released in the upcoming months.

About StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon discovers Web sites based on your interests, learns what you like, and brings you more. With more than 7.4 million users and 425 million recommendations per month, StumbleUpon is the leading way to discover great content on the Internet. More than 20,000 advertisers are using StumbleUpon to promote products and services. Founded in 2001, StumbleUpon is based in San Francisco and backed by the same investors as Google and Facebook. For more information, visit www.stumbleupon.com.