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Some interesting numbers: WhatsApp raised only $8 million (from Sequoia in 2011 http://www.crunchbase.com/company/whatsapp http://www.crunchbase.com/company/wh
by falsestprophet 13y ago
Some interesting numbers:
WhatsApp raised only $8 million (from Sequoia in 2011 http://www.crunchbase.com/company/whatsapp http://www.crunchbase.com/company/whatsapp).
19B sale price is about 10% of Facebook's 173B valuation.
At 400 million, WhatsApp has more users than, the world's third most populous country, the United States has residents.
- robryan 13y agoWow, that sure is going to be a massive result for Sequoia.
- antr 13y agoIt just shows that all those Series A/B rounds at $15m-$20m won't buy you traction nor success. Or as many VCs would say "the market wasn't ready"
- rokhayakebe 13y agoI wish your comment found its way to the top of the main thread.
- chrislloyd 13y agoAssuming Sequoia took that for 20% of the company (fairly standard), they just made $3.2bn. For every $1 they invested in WhatsApp, they made $400 back. </napkinmath> However people feel about the VC game, 400x IRR are why so many people play.
- ojbyrne 13y agoMinor quibble: IRR is usually an annualized measure. I come up with a number just over 7x (assuming 3 years, cube root of 400-1). Not that it makes it any less insane.
- rahimnathwani 13y agoAnother minor quibble: IRR is usually expressed as a percentage (e.g. 700% per year rather than 7x).
- pbreit 13y agoI never understand the comparison of user bases to populations. Makes no sense to me whatsoever.