On stage at Disrupt NY today, Sequoia partner and Square board member Roelof Botha set the record straight around those rumors that the payments company was in acquisition talks with Google. “There is a lot of misinformation about Square right now…there were no discussions about a sale,” he said.
He’s referring to a WSJ report from a few weeks ago, which indicated that Square was in acquisition talks with Google. We had heard at the time that this was false.
Botha said that he was on the phone with the WSJ when they asked about the report, and was shocked. As he explained, if there was any acquisition talk, I would have know about it as a board member.
As for the plans for a delayed IPO, Botha also added that the company had never filed, thus had never delayed an offering. The WSJ also reported that Square posted a loss of about $100 million in 2013, and had spent around half of the $340 million in funding raised. “Square has great margins, and phenomenal operating leverage,” he said of the company today.
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