Confirmed: The Groupon/Google Deal Is Off

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

Jason Kincaid currently works as a writer at TechCrunch. He grew up in Danville, California and later relocated to UCLA in Los Angeles, California, where he studied biology with a minor in ‘Society and Genetics’. You can reach him at jkincaidtc@gmail.com (he has other addresses too, so don’t worry if you have a different one). → Learn More

Google’s much-rumored acquisition of Groupon is off, we’ve confirmed with a source with knowledge of the deal. The news was reported earlier by Chicago Breaking Business, and we’ve verified that the deal is indeed off.

The two companies have been in serious negotiations for at least the last week, with reports stating that Google was bidding as much as $6 billion for the red-hot local deals company.

Our source has also verified that Groupon’s annual revenues are now at a $2 billion run rate, which is much higher than the figures that had previously been circulating (this number was reported by AllThingsD a few minutes ago). The $2B figure is the total value of Groupons sold — half of the cost of the Groupon goes back to the merchant, but all the revenue passes through Groupon in much the same way that Google collects all AdSense dollars and counts them as revenues before passing along a portion to publishers.

The CBB report says that Groupon may be eying a possible IPO, though it won’t be making a decision about going public until next year.

We’ll update as we hear more.

Company: Google
Website: google.com
Launch Date: September 7, 1998
IPO: NASDAQ:GOOG

Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information....

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Company: Groupon
Website: groupon.com
Launch Date: November 11, 2008
IPO: July 11, 2011, Nasdaq:GRPN

Groupon features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in more than 565 cities around the world. By promising businesses a minimum number of customers, Groupon can offer deals that aren’t available elsewhere. Groupon brings buyers and sellers together in a fun and collaborative way that offers the consumer an unbeatable deal, and businesses a large number of new customers. To date, it has saved consumers more than $300 million and claims it...

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