VC firm Balderton Capital will reap about $140 million – nine times what it invested in Bebo less than two years ago – by selling its 15.7 percent stake in the social net to AOL (NYSE: TWX). That’s a huge return on the $15 million investment it only made in May 2006, when it was still operating as Benchmark’s European outpost, and clearly one of the shrewdest European web investments of recent times.
Balderton partner Barry Maloney, who joined the Bebo board at the time: