Techcrunch Sold To AOL

The rumors started flying yesterday. Today it became official.

Techcrunch announced that they agreed to be purchased by AOL during their Disrupt conference. Financial details have not been disclosed.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen today — this was supposed to happen later,” TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington said from the stage at their Disrupt conference. “So we had to rush through this.”

From the stage he polled the audience about whether or not he should sign the agreement. “Absolutely Not!” defeated “Yay” in a 60/40 split, but Arrington signed anyway.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong posted the announcement on Techcrunch with a paragraph and the press release. Included in the deal are the other properties in the Techcrunch network, including MobileCrunch, CrunchGear, TechCrunchIT, GreenTech, TechCrunchTV and CrunchBase.

Techcrunch, which has an Alexa traffic rank of 302 worldwide, was launched in 2005 and quickly became a leader in the tech-blogging world behind their enigmatic founder. Arrington, a former corporate and securities lawyer, had limited success with his previous 2 startup attempts. Based upon the success that Techcrunch has had with websites and conferences, it is likely that this deal was a lucrative one for Arrington.