Snapchat CEO Also Turned Down a $4 Billion Offer from Google

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Snapchat’s co-founder and CEO, Evan Spiegel was recently reported to have turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook and today, we hear that Google also made an offer of $4 billion which Snapchat CEO declined as well (via ValleyWag). It appears that Spiegel wants an even higher valuation, so he has decided not to sell the company and instead raise funding next year.

“According to our source familiar with the deal, Tencent was the first to offer Snapchat a termsheet at valuation between $3 billion and $4 billion. CEO Evan Spiegel, a privileged L.A. scion used to getting his way, said he wanted a higher valuation. At that point, Tencent walked away from the deal because it was too high. That’s when Spiegel went to Facebook and said he was ready to sell. Around the same time, Spiegel also went to to Google for “strategic investment,” the source said. Google perked its ears because of Tencent’s interest in Snapchat.”

The source explains that the logic behind this is that increased traffic in the winter could get Snapchat up to 400 million snaps per day, which is currently at 350 million. And if Snapchat reaches that mark, that would surpass the number of photos uploaded to Facebook each day and allow Spiegel to command a “premium price”, which could be way more than $4 billion.

It is also said that Google wanted to keep Snapchat as a standalone app and was motivated to buy because “Facebook has proved against Google that it’s better at social and consumer products.”

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