SEC Filing Shows CoTweet Sold For At Least $8.1 Million
Erick Schonfeld
Mar 15, 2010

When CoTweet sold to ExactTarget a couple weeks ago, the acquisition price was not disclosed. But an SEC filing put out today suggests that ExactTweet paid at least $8.1 million in stock for CoTweet. That is the value of “securities offered . . . as partial consideration in connection with a merger,” meaning there was likely a cash portion as well. While this isn’t a huge sum, it’s not a terrible return for an initial investment of $1.1 million.

CoTweet helps businesses manage multiple Twitter accounts and use it more effectively as marketing channel. The CoTweet acquisition is now being pointed to as an example of how businesses can be built on top of Twitter. So now we know how much the stock portion of the deal was worth.

Will we see more $8 million to $10 million deals in the near future, or do exits have to become bigger to make it worth creating a startup around Twitter?

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  • http://socialapp.wordpress.com Ashu

    Time = 15 months (Jan2009 — Mar2010)
    Investment = $1.1M
    ROI = $8-$10M

    It seems pretty decent deal to me. Plus, if you are a first time entrepreneur definitely a good to have for your next startup. And, also it should give a lot of people motivation to apply for StartupVisa

  • http://ericboggs.com Eric

    Based on nothing more than a hunch, I’ll bet the cash portion was at least $4M.

    If so – the investors probably got at least ~3X in less than 12 months. Which yields a tasty IRR, even if there numbers are on the small side.

  • HedgeFundTrader

    Nice market validation for some of the twitter-based models out there.

    I know bossiptwitter.com which creates an African American twitter ecosystem looks interesting. Whose next?

  • dan

    Ummm…how can they sell for 8 million when they don’t even SELL a product. It’s free?!?

  • jd

    Tired whine. The service costs nearly zero to run. The monetization opportunities are obvious and straightforward if the traction continues.

  • Tom

    Waste of money.

    But then again the investments made in exacttarget is a waste too – hope the ivestors have planned to recouperate their investment back by the end of 2010 (and I ma not talking profits and returns), else say goodbye to the investments ans start looking for more practical ivestments.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1583921000 Kevin Cimring

    Agreed that for the time and initial investment there is nothing wrong with this return! Very nice, and well done to those involved.

  • http://bootstrappy.com Bootstrappy

    I don’t know the CoTweet story, but if they are (were) a bootstrapped startup, that’s would be fine. As a venture funded startup, it depends on liquidation preference, participation, etc. Founders and employees with equity could walk with little or even nothing due to the non-linearity of the payoff chart (see here: http://bootstrappy.blogspot.com/2010/02/bootstrap-or-die-lessons-learned-from.html). Cheers.

  • jj

    ?? I thought wise investment is in company current or 12x revenue, you dont buy company on future promises — future changes too fast

  • Ilan Ben Menachem

    GOOD TO KNOW

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