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"Wow, that's phenomenal."

That's quite a halo effect that has prevented you from seeing the true "success rate".

Where are you getting 5 acquisitions from?

Reddit, Loopt basically made out.

Infogami merged with Reddit. That's essentially a save face maneuver and doesn't exactly signal success.

Clickfacts - "YC stake acquired by private investors" doesn't sound like that would be a win but a break even. More like "take it off our hands".

Kiko - Sold in an ebay auction for 258,000.

http://gigaom.com/2006/09/05/tucows-bought-kiko/

http://tucowsinc.com/news/2006/09/why-we-bought-kikocom/

I'd give it 2.1 out of 8.




I don't know what Reddit sold for, but while Loopt's $40M was far down from its earlier $500M, it's still a hell of a lot more than the ~$300k valuation it would have had when YC invested in it.


Loopt raised $32M in funding [1], so a $40M exit is roughly scratch.

[1] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/loopt


I think he's not just talking about the dollar value of exits, but the value of the founders.

The founders of Loopt, the Reddits, and Justin.tv have done a lot for the YC program (and for startups in general) going forward; arguably these 3 moderate successes financially for YC but having very involved alumni might be worth more than a huge financial success which didn't stay involved with YC.


The comment that I was specifically replying to was this:

"Wow, that's phenomenal. In 7 years, out of 8 companies there were 5 acquisitions (and a couple mergers). I'm sure any VC would be ecstatic to have that kind of success rate."

I don't see how that statement has anything to do with the value of the founders.

He said "5 acquisitions" not "2 (or 3) acquisitions and additionally they have very involved alumni.




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