Update: AOL to acquire UK social travel site WAYN?

January 17, 2008 | Online Travel

According to TechCrunch UK, social travel site WAYN is allegedly in talks with AOL over a possible $200m sale to the consumer portal giant. Annika Erskine, a spokesperson for WAYN, denied again that any sale talks are taking place, and provides some insights on the company's present focus.

Social travel site WAYN is allegedly in talks with AOL over a possible $200m sale to the consumer portal giant. A spokesperson for the UK startup denied that any sale talks are taking place.

If the deal goes through it would rank amongst the biggest sales of a UK social networking startup yet, and a healthy payday for founders Jerome Touze (CEO), Peter Ward and CTO Mike Lines (who runs the 35-strong technical department in Poland).

WAYN is one of the fastest growing travel and lifestyle social networking community sites in the UK and has a footprint in over 220 countries, with over nine million members.

Get the full story at TechCrunch UK

As a follow-up to the TechCrunch story, Annika Erskine from WAYN writes:

“Further to the comments referred to in this article we would like to confirm that WAYN has at no point had discussions with AOL and are not currently looking for a strategic sale.

WAYN is unique in that it is focused on the travel vertical which represents by far the largest and most lucrative sector online and we are excited about the new products we are introducing to our members and the prospect of developing into the mobile space with location based data and services being one of our core strengths. We benefit from a broad demographic with over 50% of our UK users over the age of 35. We are also one of the only social networks which is 18+ to improve the safety for our users.

Our present focus is to create long term value and build a truly successful business. The WAYN vision is to become the world�s largest and most successful travel and lifestyle community portal and our management team is solely focused on achieving that goal.”