Surprise: About.Me Independent Again After Raising $5.7 Million

About.Me might have looked just like a “web profile” services but it’s turning in a very interesting story. Co-founders Tony Conrad and Ryan Freitas, both of who appeared at the WebFest.Me conference, announced that they are spinning About.Me out of AOL which bought the startup back in 2010.

About.Me announced the spinoff on their official blog, which comes as they say “24 months and several million about.me pages” later. Their next step is to create new features users have been asking for on forums, Twitter and even face-to-face with Ryan and Tony. And the once-again startup company isn’t doing it alone.

True Ventures, where Conrad is a partner, is backing them with a new $5.7 million dollars in capital along with several other funds, including SoftTech VC, Google VEntures and the CrunchFund. Kinda sounds like the Skype story in a sense.

Back in the Game

AOL sold About.Me back for a far smaller sum than the seven-figure number they have for the company in 2010. Conrad states that the decision to leave AOL wasn’t due to any disagreement, that it just wasn’t the right fit since AOL’s acquisition strategy is “very focused on media”. Good luck, About.Me, you just got even more interesting!

While we’re waiting for more new, read and watch our interview with Tony from last year, about About.Me and getting advisors like Kevin Rose on board.