GetGlue today announced that it is not merging with Viggle, though the social TV app maker said in a statement on its blog that “the two companies remain friendly and think highly of each other.”
A Viggle-GetGlue merger was first announced in November and the deal between the two competitors, which never closed, could have been worth $70 million or more. Though the deal looked good in concept, however, it started to fall apart when you took a closer look at the numbers, as Ryan Lawler wrote. For one thing, the merger was contingent on Viggle raising an additional $60 million in funding, which it had difficulty securing quickly–just last week, the two companies disclosed in a SEC filing that they were “discussing an extension of such date and other potential modifications to the Merger Agreement” and Viggle said it was still expecting to raise the money from a strategic investor.
Meanwhile, Viggle CEO Robert Sillerman was fronting his own cash for the deal, extending his existing loan agreement with Viggle from $12.5 million to $15 million in mid-December. Viggle also seemed to be using up cash much faster than it was getting it. The company had just $1.7 million in revenues through November, but spent $32.6 million on operators.
In a press statement, Sillerman said:
“During the time we started talking to GetGlue about an acquisition and since the merger agreement was signed in November, we have seen impressive growth in our business. We are pleased with this positive momentum.”