I can't say whether or not an acquisition offer is validation of an idea from an investor's perspective. To play devils advocate, I could also argue that if yo

I can't say whether or not an acquisition offer is validation of an idea from an investor's perspective. To play devils advocate, I could also argue that if you are considering it, then you weren't hockey sticking, and thus i shouldn't invest in you. Also, one thing to consider is, and this is my opinion, that taking early investors could potentially be an impediment to an acquisition. The reason being is that your investors are interested in getting some kind of multiplier on their return. If you were considering a talent acquisition, not having investors means that almost any sum of money could be worth it to you. When my-cofounder and I were shopping around for investment before, we were at a point where we weren't sure if we needed to hire a sales force to help us grow our customer base. So we put together a plan for what kind of money we needed. One kind VC gave us the advice to try doing the sales ourselves for the summer. If it worked out, then we wouldn't need to raise any money. If it didn't work out, then at least we would know it was really hard, and then we could go try to take outside money. Either way we would know something. Fortunately for us, we ended up trying to do sales that summer (it was hard.) And because we had been so open with potential partners (and acquirers), we ended up with a deal that worked out well for us. I'm not sure it would have made sense had we raised any money.