RSS at Feed Burner15 Reasons Why StubHub Loves eBay
I am sure you have heard about eBay’s acquisition of StubHub for $310 million. The funny part about it is that they were in discussions over a deal in 2002. eBay almost paid $20 million for the company until the deal fell apart because eBay thought that was too much money.
Four years later and 15 times (the original price) greater, they finally came to a deal. I think this just goes to show a couple of things:
1) Big companies are more willing to pay big money for leaders in a category as opposed to building something on their own. They would rather spend $300 million buying a leader compared to $20 million for an up-and-comer, but unproven leader.
2) 2007, like 2006 looks to be a great year for companies looking to get acquired. IPO’s are still not back in vogue, but the economy has been doing well so people and companies want to invest. Since the Real Estate Market has died down, private equity has continued to grow.
StubHub was funded almost exclusively by Angel Investors. They had one round of VC money.