When Facebook announced offers to acquire Instagram yesterday, tongues were wagging in the reported sales price of $1 billion. Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger had seemingly achieved the Silicon Valley dream – for any free app! But this week’s deal isn’t the very first time a serious company has got an inferior firm or app for giant bucks.
As Twitter’s Matt Graves tweeted yesterday, “Instagram jealousy may be the new YouTube jealousy.” Last 2006, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were the talk from the startup world when Google shelled out $1.65 billion for their video site, YouTube, the search giant’s largest acquisition back then. There are skeptics who questioned whether a two-year-old company could truly be worth almost $2 billion, however in this case, the gamble has definitely paid off.
A good pricier acquisition came about the year before when eBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion. That didn’t actually work out for eBay – the two parted ways several years ago – but Skype made off quite nicely when Microsoft picked up years later for $8.5 billion.
Hardly any other deals will be in the billion-dollar category, but countless startups have walked away which has a nice chunk of change. From Amazon’s $850 million purchase of Zappos and Apple something electronic arts $750 million payout for PopCap, the Silicon Valley dream is alive and well for the tech- and business-savvy.
Hit the slideshow to get more and inform us about other Facebook/Instagram-esque deals you can imagine in the comments.
Source : pcmag.com
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