A prominent leader in the tech-startup community is moving on.
Walt Doyle, the longtime CEO of Where, which was acquired by PayPal in April 2011, has left the company as of today. Doyle served as general manager of PayPal Media Network after the acquisition. It has been two years since the deal, so Doyle’s departure is not surprising.
I’ve reached out to Doyle and the local PayPal office for comments and an update on the company’s local progress and strategy.
There are two real stories here, and this isn’t one of them—they have yet to be written.
One is what Doyle (pictured below) will do next. He has been very active in the entrepreneurial community, serving on the boards of Celtra, EverTrue, and other companies, and serving as an advisor to other firms like Leaf and Auction Holdings. He is one of the Boston area’s leading experts in mobile technologies and payments, but more broadly he has strong business instincts in areas such as consumer products, media, and publishing.
The other story is about the future of PayPal in Boston. From what I’ve heard, a lot of PayPal’s mobile strategy is being driven locally. With Doyle’s departure, the local office is led by David Chang, the chief operating officer of PayPal Media Network. Chang originally joined Where as vice president of product back in 2009. Like Doyle, he is steeped in Boston’s entrepreneurial ecosystem (his previous experience includes TripAdvisor, m-Qube, and Mobicious) and is involved with a bunch of startups.
Another Where alum, Mok Oh (who served as PayPal’s chief scientist after the acquisition), left PayPal in October and is now working on a consumer-focused photo organizer startup called Moju Labs.
Where (originally called uLocate) was started in 2003 and relaunched in 2007 as a location-based mobile services platform. The company built its software business around local search and discovery, deals, and an advertising network, and became nicely profitable. The price tag for PayPal’s acquisition was about $135 million.
