So before we get into this, let’s build the case for the defence. Nokia has been acquiring lots of small startups lately (Plum, Cellity and Bit-Side this year) and TechCrunch.com now has a source that says they’ve bought boutique travel social network Dopplr. This appears to have occurred while Dopplr was fundraising – something which often happens when deals are being thrashed out. Dopplr is not commenting on the story.
Anyway, the purchase price is said to be between €10 million and €15 million. We first covered Dopplr in 2007 when it closed on seed funding supposedly raising just €1.25 million or so in total funding. And yet it has a stellar group of backers: Martin Varsavsky (FON), Joichi Ito, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Saul Klein (TAG), Esther Dyson (Angel), Tyler Brûlé (Meeja), Thomas Glocer (Thomson Reuters) and Lars Hinrichs (Xing). I mean, good grief, most startups would kill and maim to have that kind of board. As good as this purported exit is, clearly these people thought Dopplr would go way, way bigger than a €15m exit.