The Truth About Why Path Turned Down A $100 Million Acquisition Offer From Google

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Leena Rao currently works as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More


So this is interesting. At TechCrunch Disrupt, Path’s co-founder Dave Morin sat down with our own Jason Kincaid to discuss Path’s strategy and growth. During the conversation, Kincaid asked Morin about that $100 million acquisition offer from Google that we reported previously.

As our report goes, in early December Path had a signed term sheet with Kleiner Perkins and Index for a $8.5 million raise. At that point Google made an acquisition offer for a whopping $100 million for the company plus an earnout of $25 million to be paid over four years. Google wanted Path because they loved the team, particularly the team’s “design skills,” and were very enthusiastic to get a prominent ex-Facebooker, Morin, at Google.

But Path turned the offer down. And closed the deal with Kleiner and Index at a roughly $25 million pre-money valuation. Why? As Kincaid tells us, we heard that there was one term of the offer that was the breaking point—basically Google could fire Morin at any point. Either a month after a deal or a year. Also the search giant gave no guarantee as to what Morin’s title and position would be at Google.

We also heard the deal involved $25 million upfront and some sort of $75 million plus earnout offer.

As Morin tells Kincaid about the report, “I wish I could talk about it…clearly TechCrunch has great sources…no comment.”

Company: Path
Website: path.com
Funding: $11.2M

Path is the simple and private way to share life with close friends & family. Founded by Dave Morin, previously Co-Inventor of Platform and Connect at Facebook with Shawn Fanning, creator of Napster, and Dustin Mierau co-creator of Macster.

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