Following up to our post last week talking about a possible acquisition of social network site Bebo: A high level source has told us that Bebo has been in discussions via their investment bank, Allen & Co., with a number of potential buyers, and says that the company signed a term sheet on Monday to be acquired. The rumored price is $750 million – $1 billion.
What’s clear is that Bebo, which is the second largest social network in the UK behind Facebook, either signed a deal, or is sending out false messages that they’ve been or are about to be acquired (which is unlikely given Allen & Co.’s involvement). If misinformation is the goal, we’ve bought it hook, line and sinker.
The buyer is unclear, although we are still betting on Google given that Bebo fits well with Orkut (very, very small user overlap). Microsoft has been mentioned as another possible candidate, although they seem to have their hands full right now with Yahoo. Other potential buyers, including News Corp. (mentioned in our previous post), Yahoo and others, have backed out due to price, from what we’ve heard. There are other potential buyers as well (AOL, CBS, Viacom, Comcast, others).
This is far from confirmed at this point, particularly the price, but this is about as strong a rumor as they come.
Bebo well deserving it… an advanced congrats!
$15m to $1b? Congrats to the investors, founding team and employees.
34mln users, Facebook has roughly twice that. I wonder if maybe this will curb the tossing around of their $15bln valuation, seeing as this is an actual purchase? Nope, didn’t think so. Facebook users must be potentially worth about 8 times as much– amazing.
Congrats to Bebo if this is real.
Congratz to Bebo!! Enjoy the MAZIC on http://moviemazic.com India’s number one Entertainment social network.
–
Thanks
Mallik
damm, that’s lots of cash.
How much is Hi5 going to be worth?
Wow this seemed to happen pretty quickly. Should be real interesting to see who bought Bebo and if it is Newscorp I’m interested to see how they work Bebo and Myspace together.
Interesting turn of events. I wonder who bought it.
http://www.dontsaynothing.com
I was wondering about the implications for Facebook’s valuation as well. If you look at Compete and Alexa numbers, it looks like Facebook gets 8-10x traffic, although the different geographical strengths probably make those numbers unreliable.
Even given that, this still wouldn’t make me terribly happy if I were holding Facebook options. They must be having a hard time getting new hires to take their options seriously; at a $15 bn valuation, it’s hard to see more upside than downside.
Wow that is surprising. I still do not think Facebook is worth anywhere close to $15 billion. That is just absurd.
if true, good move for Google.
congrats Michael & Xochi & team.
(ps – Jessica: you get to pickup lunch next time
Coca cola is buying them and using them as a platform to launch a social drink where you share the straw with your network
I think it’s still rumor, not official confirmation about this news.
if it’s on TechCrunch it has to be true.
$1b, too big a bubble
Bebo has done a great job of establishing themselves as a large SoNet in the English Speaking world. The West is one of the toughest crowds as far as SoMed goes, hundreds of new startups try to do what Bebo has done every year and my hat is off to the team.
They did a great job in the acquisition considering a quick guess that they are getting an avg CPM of $0.30-$0.60. Given they have 4billion ad impressions/month their yearly revenue could be upwards of $10-20 million (I would guess closer to 10)
That gives them a multiple of 50-100x revenue, which is in line with the facebook valuation, but not inline with most post-bubble internet (not to mention non-internet) acquisitions.
With the fickle nature of users, Bebo will likely always be a work in progress, meaning they will continue to lead new development for users like they have with Apps and beyond.
Kudos to Bebo!
Bebo as done a great job in the UK promoting the brand and have kept tight control over 3rd part apps which are killing of myspace.
So according to this valuation World of Warcraft should be worth more than Google? Maybe Blizzard should add couple of widgets to the options menu and watch VCs go wild.
The funny thing is Broadcast.com happenned less than a decade ago. Guess people never learn, or there is a nice kickback.
I don’t get it: if it “definitely” happened why wouldn’t they announce it?
How long is normal on these types of deals between the handshake and press release?
it’s AOL.
“What’s clear is that Bebo [...] either signed a deal, or is sending out false messages that they’ve been or are about to be acquired (which is unlikely given Allen & Co.’s involvement). If misinformation is the goal, we’ve bought it hook, line and sinker.”
Seeing as you are citing an anonymous source, and the company hasn’t given an official word on this, I would hardly say anything is clear. Color me skeptical.
Wallstrip did a puff piece on Bebo yesterday:
http://www.wall...com/2008/02/12/
Aren’t they owned by CBS? Maybe that’s the buyer?
They must be having a hard time getting new hires to take their options seriously; at a $15 bn valuation, it’s hard to see more upside than downside.
BREAKING NEWS: Confirmed by anonymous source.
Tech Crunch was definitely acquired today by the Onion News Network. Apparently, they ran out of funny ideas for false news stories and thought that buying TC would keep them going for at least another 6 months. The selling price of $999 a share would put Tech Crunch’s worth at almost 50 trillion dollars – Approximately $49,999,999,999 more than previous estimates by wall street analysts.
This is definitely a fact that is truly for real. Honest.
Scmidt is connected to Allen & Co. Google bought it.
i smell kickbacks…..social networks are not worth billions…there is nothing new to talk, thats why SN is the talk of the town…just wait few months, ppl forget about SN space
MagNet is coming!!
G
Wow, I hope http://www.oziwi.com will be worth some cash oneday. I will be able to buy a new car.. woohoo. Well done Bebo I know you wish you were as popular as Oziwi.com DownUnder.
hi
I am not convinced with thisd eal.this is more than maximum estimation.
Secondly ,I wonder how this deal will help AOL?
Why AOL have valued Bebo so much high?
HArd to believe
Looks like you were right!