Apps

WhatsApp valued at $1.5 billion in last financing round before buyout

posted by Alan F. / Feb 21, 2014, 10:50 PM

WhatsApp valued at $1.5 billion in last financing round before buyout

As you probably know by now, WhatsApp was purchased by Facebook for $19 billion in cash and stock. What you might not realize is that as recently as last July, the messaging app received $52 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion. That means that the company's value rose over 12 times in 7 months. Previous financing rounds took place in 2011 ($8 million at a valuation of $80 million) and 2009 (an initial seed round of $250,000).

All of the money was placed by Venture Capital firm Sequoia, which resulted in the company owning 20% of WhatsApp. As a result, the investment firm now owns $3.2 billion in cash and stock related to the buyout, which results in a 50 fold profit for Sequoia. You can check out the contract for the $52 million Series B investment made by the venture capital firm, below.

The $19 billion deal is the largest in history for any venture backed company. The question is whether this is a peak, or the beginning of a new era.

source: VCExperts via TechCrunch

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8 Comments

1. istitch

Posts: 181; Member since: Mar 19, 2013

and each of the worker for whatsapp received 50million of bonus after the purchase...

posted on Feb 21, 2014, 11:32 PM 1

4. Ashoaib

Posts: 3309; Member since: Nov 15, 2013

Wow... why I am not working in whatsapp?

posted on Feb 22, 2014, 1:31 AM 0

2. rawbow

Posts: 428; Member since: Mar 30, 2012

The $19 Bil is a bargain in my opinion because Google at one point wanted to top that offer and it came down to the owners thought process of the company he wanted to marry. FB he felt shared common thought process about social networking. 450 million users comes down to FB paying around $40 per user which is way low compared to Linkedin valuing users at $100 +. Now both google and fb know that whats app will reach the billion mark by Q4 or 2015 and the trend of ditching social networking to fast IM is on the rise. Zuker man has just nullified a potential threat which could have cost fb a major chunk of its business in the near future. He paid 1/10 th the value of his own company and scored a win.

posted on Feb 22, 2014, 12:11 AM 0

6. networkdood

Posts: 6330; Member since: Mar 31, 2010

Yep, this reminds me of the New York Yankees - overpay....FB obviously did so due to fear....

posted on Feb 22, 2014, 6:36 AM 2

3. knacc1

Posts: 1; Member since: Feb 21, 2014

I think they will make whatsapp free on ios and android, I think mark zuckerberg have higher goals than making money,I think one of the goals is to take down governments who are not allies and not very cooperative with the US and Their allies using social networks. Social media played big role to help organizing protests by what called "protest leaders". search internet.org project. I think next is south american countries later African countries who are not allies with the us and its ideology. that's what I think.

posted on Feb 22, 2014, 12:11 AM 3

5. Ashoaib

Hmm... sounds convincing

posted on Feb 22, 2014, 6:30 AM 1

7. networkdood

Your flaw in this is that social media is not exactly considered 'intelligent'...or rather its people...the right voice can easily persuade millions to do something terrible..reminds me of religion...very scary