Recap of Startup Acquisitions

Any startup acquisition story usually sets off speculations and varied guesses on the acquisition amount. While some companies are forthcoming about it, most companies keep it as a heavily guarded secret.

With Groupon acquiring three startups last week, we thought this would be a good time to revisit some of the earlier acquisition stories we reported on. These acquisition amounts given below are in US Dollars and not the official numbers, we are reporting based on what we’ve heard from various sources:

Beeconomic

Amount: $24 million

Started in : May 2010

Groupon acquired Singapore-based deal site, Beeconomic last week. The Straits Times, Singapore-based publication, guesstimated the acquisition amount to be $24 million. Beeconomic has been around for just about six month and was started by siblings, Karl and Christopher Chong. Along with Beeconomic, Groupon acquired uBuyiBuy and Atlaspost in Taiwan.

tenCube

Amount: $10 – 15 million

Started in: 2005

Singapore-based mobile security startup was snapped up by Internet security giant, McAfee in July 2010. The Straits Times speculated the acquisition amount to be $15 million. And we heard from some sources that the amount falls between the range of 10 – 15 milion dollars. Check out e27′s interview with Darius, post-acquisition.

Koprol

Amount : <$500,000

Started in: 2009

Yahoo’s acquisition of Indonesia-based Koprol created quite a stir within the tech community in Indonesia. This was Yahoo’s first foray into the location-based social networking space and the acquisition took place amidst rumors of Yahoo buying Foursquare. The acquisition amount was never disclosed but it has now come to light that amount was less than one million dollars. We also heard from a few reliable sources that the amount was less than 500,000. Yahoo picked up the startup for an absolute bargain.

Some other recent startup acqusitions were JobsDB acquiring CozyCot and Travelport acquiring Sprice. The acquisition amounts of these startups remain undisclosed.

The acquisition amount stated here reflects the rate at which some of the startups in the region are being acquired for. And looks like Beeconomic has definitely hit the jackpot, specially for a startup that is barely six months old.

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