Tumblr was running out of money before Yahoo paid $990m for it

Quarterly filing reveals that Tumblr had just $16.6m in cash when Marissa Mayer swooped - while Yahoo revenues continue to fall

Tumblr, the blogging platform bought for $1bn by Yahoo in June 2013, had just $16.6m in cash when Yahoo bought it out for $990m.

The company had raised $85m less than two years earlier - in September 2011 - but was fast running out of money as it sought to ramp up its commercial activities. At the time of purchase, it employed some 175 people, many of them involved in sales.

Indeed, the filing shows that Yahoo placed a value of just $23.7m on the value of Tumblr's technology. The rest included intangibles, such as "customer contracts and relationships", valued at $182.4m - more than Tumblr achieved in revenues in its seven year life - and "goodwill", valued at $75.9m.

"Goodwill represents the excess of the purchase price over the fair value of the net tangible and identifiable intangible assets acquired," explains the filing.

Tumblr founder David Karp will also be paid $40m purely for staying at Yahoo for the next four years, which will be topped up with stock options valued at $41m.

However, Yahoo revenue continued to decline, year-on-year, in the second quarter to the end of June. Total revenue fell from $1.2bn to $1.135bn as turnover in Europe and Asia/Pacific continued to fall sharply, offsetting a small increase in revenue in the Americas. The company's profits, however, rose as a result of cost cutting.