Deals
Yahoo’s Yang Is Back Playing Alibaba-Board Power Broker
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Executives at messaging startup TangoMe Inc. were brainstorming expansion plans last year when one of their investors, Jerry Yang, made a suggestion: Talk to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo! Inc., quickly introduced TangoMe to an Alibaba executive. That led to a meeting with Yang, Alibaba Vice Chairman Joe Tsai and the young company at its Space Odyssey room in Mountain View, California, in late 2013, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. By March, Alibaba had agreed to invest $215 million in TangoMe as part of a round that valued the startup at more than $1 billion.