Comcast Goes Social, Buys Plaxo, Takes A Pulse

Comcast, the Philadelphia-based cable giant has finally announced that the it is buying Plaxo, a Mountain View, Calif.-based social networking & connected address book company, for an undisclosed amount of money. Plaxo, whose co-founders include Sean Parker raised $23 million since 2002 from VC firms including Sequoia Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, and DAG Ventures.

This has been the worst kept secret, with people speculating about the price of this acquisition. Plaxo and Comcast officials declined to comment on the price when I had a conference call with them earlier today. Even today the price range is being pegged between $100 million to $170 million. I have on authority that the price is $170 million including earn outs. This is yet another mega-million dollar bet by the cable company in its ongoing transformation into a web-based company with an eye on advertising dollars.

Full article: gigaom.com