How-to website wikiHow has bought DIY platform Guidecentral for an undisclosed amount.
Guidecentral was founded in Dublin in 2012 by Gaston Irigoyen who had been working as a senior sales executive at Google's European headquarters on Dublin's Barrow Street.
Mr Irigoyen said Guidecentral, which is backed by Enterprise Ireland, will remain a separate brand with a distinct community, content, apps and website.
“This was a competitive sale with multiple bidders up until the deal closed. Terms of the transaction are not going to be disclosed,” he added.
He said the DIY platform’s community is very diverse and global in nature, with very engaged users in countries such as the USA, Ireland, Italy, Russia and the Philippines.
“This fits very well with wikiHow’s model and universal approach to skill sharing and daytoday knowledge.”
Mr Irigoyen, who is originally from Argentina, said the Guidecentral community will benefit from the acquisition, with makers and their projects reaching up to 100 million wikiHow users moving forward.
How to do anything
WikiHow founder and chief executive Jack Herrick said his company's mission is to teach every person on the planet how to do anything.
“Guidecentral’s DIY content and passionate community can help wikiHow extend our educational reach.”
He said it is not every day a bootstrapped company acquires a venture funded company.
“WikiHow has never raised venture capital and has no goal to exit or IPO, we’re ludicrously ambitious. We’re obsessed with giving a free practical education to every single person on the planet. Making our first acquisition will help us learn if we can extend our impact by having a separate product with a new model.”
Guidecentral, a graduate of BlackBox Connect - a residential programme for foreign founders in Silicon Valley – has raised more than $1 million (€0.9m) from investors including NXTP Labs, Enterprise Ireland and South Ventures. Incubated in Dogpatch Labs, it had offices in New York, Dublin and Madrid.
