Facebook would have had an "informal interest" in the purchase of a parent of QG Trivia

• At one point, Facebook has demonstrated an "informal interest" in the purchase of Intermedia Labs, the company in charge of the HQ Trivia trivia application, reports the Wall Street Journal.
• But Facebook's interest would have apparently diminished after Recode's publication of an article describing allegations of inappropriate behavior by Colin Kroll, co-founder of Intermedia Labs.while he was working for Twitter.
• Kroll died of a drug overdose in 2018.
• Facebook and Intermedia Labs did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comments.

At one point, Facebook has demonstrated an "informal interest" in the purchase of Intermedia Labs, the company in charge of the HQ Trivia trivia application, reports the Wall Street Journal.

But Facebook's interest would apparently have declined after Recode published an article outlining allegations of inappropriate behavior by Colin Kroll, co-founder of Intermedia Labs, while he was working for Twitter. Kroll died of a drug overdose in 2018.

Facebook and Intermedia Labs did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comments.

Read more: Colin Kroll, co-founder of QG Trivia and Vine, was a talented but tough boss who had always had trouble with the staff.

The Recode article, released in December 2017, indicated that many venture capitalists did not want to invest in Intermedia Labs because of concerns about Kroll's behavior on Twitter. (Kroll co-founded Vine, a missing 6-second video application, which was acquired by Twitter in 2012.) Recode reported that Kroll had been fired from Twitter because of his poor management skills and that he had acquired a reputation as a player in a "scary" way towards women. An internal investigation on Twitter revealed that he was not guilty of badual harbadment, but that he had "created a hostile work environment," according to the Wall Street Journal.

HQ Trivia launched a $ 15 million round led by Peter Thiel's founder's fund announced in March 2018. It has been reported that the company's valuation exceeded $ 100 million.

Since then, when the company was at its peak, its star has apparently faded. As reported by Recode in a November 2018 article, Trivia HQ held second place in monthly downloads in February 2018. By November, it had dropped to 253.

In 2018, Facebook has put in place features allowing publishers to create game shows streaming on Facebook Live.