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Deals fall apart. Running both deals in parallel is a smart way to hedge risk. Also, it is in fact possible to put together a deal very fast. We sold FriendFeed

• mbesto 15y ago
  Curious...when you speak of a "deal" are you saying all of negotiations and paper work? It's my assumption that many large scale deals get negotiated informally over a longer period of time and rarely is it as simple as an investor comes in on a thursday at a first introduction and a deal is signed by sunday.
  • paul 15y ago
    I negotiated terms Friday evening, we signed docs Sunday night, and announced Monday morning.
    • bigdubs 15y ago
      not that it's apples and oranges either (50mm vs. 1bn) you'd think diligence takes time (i.e. longer than a weekend).
      • bigiain 15y ago
        Yeah, but that diligence is surely all in FB's court? If my startup was valued at 500m last week (I wish!), and someone offered me 1b for it today, I'd consider the extent of due diligence required on my part would be checking to see if the cheque cleared... (Having said that, presumably FB _did_ due diligence - before Thursday's 50m on 500m round - I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when Instagram explained that in the final few days of the sale… "Oh, BTW, we sold 10% to Sequoia et al on Thursday - that doesn't change anything here, right?")
      • easp 15y ago
        It seems likely that a lot of the information Facebook would want for its due diligence would already have been pulled together for the funding deal.