Posted by Chris OBrien on February 5th, 2010 at 2:11 pm | Categorized as Future of Media, O'Brien, Social Media, Strategy | Tagged as Advertising, Google, local, Yelp
We learned in late December that Yelp turned down an acquisition offer from Google reported to be worth $500 million. Yelp then raised $25 million from Elevation Partners, with another $75 million possibly coming down the road.
It may need that money to ward off Google, which is ramping up its local advertising offerings. The new service places Yelp directly in Google’s scope. And I wonder if it won’t lead Yelp to regret not selling when they had the chance.
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Posted by Chris OBrien on January 19th, 2010 at 12:39 pm | Categorized as Innovation, O'Brien, Strategy | Tagged as elevation partners, Google, IPO, Stock options, techcrunch, Yelp, zynga
For those of you thinking the IPO market is going to come roaring back this year, think again.
I just saw the post from Techcrunch yesterday that Yelp was on the verge of taking a $50 million investment from Elevation Partners. This comes after the failed acquisition talks with Google. Here’s what’s interesting:
“The size of the round is in the $50 million range, but includes both a primary investment component as well as a secondary offering for long time employees. These deals are now being referred to as ‘DST deals,’ since DST first invested in Facebook in May 2009 at a $10 billion valuation and later funded employee buyouts at a $6.5 billion valuation. They did a similar deal with Zynga.”
In other words, part of the investment will allow long-time employees to cash out options. Same deal with Facebook and Zynga. But why? Read the rest of this entry »
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