Yelp Turned Down Microsoft Too
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11th February 2010
About two months ago, when Yelp turned down an offer from Google, there had been speculation that Yelp had received a counter offer from Microsoft.
It now turns out that the speculations were true. Peter Burrows at BusinessWeek reported that Microsoft had made Yelp an offer of over $700 million, while the original offer they had received from Google had been in the region of $550 million.
To everyone’s surprise, Yelp, which hosts reviews of local businesses, has gone ahead and rejected the offer from Microsoft as well!
Instead, the company has accepted an investment of $100 million from Elevation Partners, which values the company at just $475 million.
On being questioned about this decision, Yelp CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman told Peter Burrows, “Yelp has the chance to become one of the great internet brands… That for me is the chance of a lifetime.”
Critics and supporters are shocked at the decision. Most believe that this was a colossal mistake, and while Yelp might be doing well right now, they are more than likely at the pinnacle of their success.
Google and Microsoft could very easily build such technology and both are sitting on enough cash to be able to even pay real users to post reviews on their services instead of Yelp.
Only time will tell, though, whether Stoppelman’s hopes will come true and the risk he has taken will be worth it or not.
Tags: google, local-search, microsoft, yelp
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3 Responses to “Yelp Turned Down Microsoft Too”
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Microsoft Takes Over Yahoo! Search to Increase Brainwash of the Public | Boycott Novell : 23 February 2010 at 10:33 am
[...] the site. According to another report, Microsoft also wants to buy a Facebook game developer and it tried to buy Yelp: About two months ago, when Yelp turned down an offer from Google, there had been speculation that [...]
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The Digital 100: The World’s Most Valuable Startups | Wall St. Cheat Sheet : 26 September 2010 at 3:03 pm
[...] Shares trade in the secondary market at a valuation range of $200 – $450 million. That said, a take-out price could likely be 2x higher as the company turned down bids from both Google and Micro…We’ll split the [...]
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The man clearly has a love for his work that few can understand. Those of us that have felt that incredible joy know why he made the decision he did. He will never regret it.