Rob Goldman just experienced one of the most exciting days in his life. It was undoubtedly a life changing event. It was a day that almost every internet entrepreneur aspires to. The day the big behemoth scoops down from the sky and purchases your company.
Late last week, it was made official news that Facebook (Nasdaq:FB) would be acquiring his privately held company Threadsy.
Threadsy’s technology platform Swaylo helps measure the influence of facebook users. Threadsy had raised 6 million in venture capital from 2 angel investors. John Johnston is one of the angel investors that backed Threadsy. Johnston boasts the stellar track record of having invested in companies such as Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU), and Visio (acquired by Microsoft). The transaction is definitely another feather in Johnston’s cap.
While this was definitely a watershed moment for Goldman and Johnston, it is still unclear what this will mean for shareholders. Did this little company hold a secret key that will unlock the massive revenue potential of being one of the world’s most popular website, or is this just another demonstration of Mark Zuckerberg’s bravado and tendency to overpay for technologies of questionable value.
According to Threadsy’s blog, the company only has 12 employees. While the terms of the deal were not announced, it is unlikely this was a firesale. Adage had reported back in March that Threadsy had already passed 6.2 million users. With that many users, this is the type of asset that usually sells at a sharp premium. Which again is great for threadsy investors, but only good for shareholders if the technology will increase Facebook’s bottom line.
On the plus side we can assume that if the transaction were large enough, good corporate governance would have forced facebook to communicate the specific terms as they did with Instagram. So it is not likely that Zuckerberg has emptied out facebooks coffers of IPO money yet.
As far as the technology goes, one must always question the value of whatever was built by a company with only 12 employees especially if only half of them were programmers. But who knows, maybe their heavily tattooed female programmer Muffy wrote something that will help facebook unlock the potential of their tremendous userbase.
In the meanwhile, investors are forced to wait for the next earnings announcement in October to see if Facebook can prove itself as a public company.
