Lycos is a search engine an web portal centered around broadband entertainment content. It began as a search engine research project by Dr. Michael Loren Mauldin of Carnegie Mellon University in 1994. Bob Davis joined the company as its CEO and first employee in 1995. Lycos then enjoyed several years of astounding growth and, in 1999, became the most visited online destination in the world with a global presence in more than 40 countries. Lycos was sold to Terra Networks of Spain in May 2000 for $5.4 billion, forming a new company, Terra Lycos, maintaining its position as one of the world's largest Internet companies. Shortly after the merger Davis left the company to become a venture capitalist with Highland Capital Partners in Boston. In October 2004, Lycos was sold by Terra's parent company, Telefonica, to Daum Communications Corporation, the second largest Internet portal in Korea, becoming, once again, Lycos, Inc. Lycos remains a top 25 Internet destination in the US. It is the 13th largest online property worldwide according to comScore Media Metrix. Lycos also remains a top 5 Internet portal, behind Yahoo, MSN, AOL and MySpace.