lockerzYesterday, Michael Birch announced that he had successfully re-purchased Bebo for $1 million from AOL, the company that originally bought the social networking upstart for a hefty $850 million.

Now, here comes word of yet another startupper who is getting his baby back. Pat Diven, who originally sold the social sharing platform AddToAny to Seattle-based Lockerz two years ago this month for an undisclosed price, has regained control of the startup.

“More passionate and appreciative than ever before, I’m back at it full-time and I’ve got the keys,” writes Diven in a blog post. “I can’t wait to (re)deliver on what matters most to publishers, developers, and always of course, the end-user.”

A source tells GeekWire that Lockerz had planned to shut down the AddToAny site as part of its ongoing transformation, but because of potential conflicts with the earn-out proposal in the deal it decided to sell the company back to Diven.

The deal comes amid big changes at Lockerz, which has raised more than $40 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, DAG Ventures, Live Nation and others. It also follows the departure of founder and CEO Kathy Savitt, a former Amazon exec who left the company last year for the chief marketing officer role at Yahoo.

We’ve heard that a number of executives and staffers have been shown the door at Lockerz or have left on their own accord. Among those who’ve left are Leilani AugustineBruce BrooksTricia FlajoleAndrew Forcier and Daniel Marashlian, who recently started SlimSurveys. We’ve also heard that much of the development team has left. The company is currently trying to reposition around a new online fashion site called Ador, but few details are available about that business.

“We’ve made org changes that have already been reported on,” said CEO Mark Stabingas in an email to GeekWire last month.  “I’m not going to comment on individual employees. We’re heads down working on a new product offering that is in private beta.”

He said more details would be available about the new product direction in the coming months.

[Hat tip to TechCrunch]

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