Ask HN: Examples of large exits without VC Funding?

19 points by prakster 8 years ago | 18 comments

Just asking for self-motivational purposes! For example: 1. Plenty Of Fish sold to Match Group in 2012 for $575 Million, by sole founder Markus Frind.

throwaway13337 8 years ago |

Most of these companies fly under the radar because they don't need media telling investors how good of an investment they are. That just invites competition.

I used to work at a company like that. Our competitor was all over tech crunch, etc but we were completely unknown to the tech community. We still beat them because we were focused on our audience which had nothing to do with the tech world.

brudgers 8 years ago |

I believe that the biggest exit ever, remains Microsoft. It is said to have produced more than 10,000 millionaires in 1986 dollars in addition to the handful of billionaires. Now technically, since it took $1,000,000 VC funding in 1981 [1], it doesn't meet your criteria. On the other hand, because it was a profitable company with a high pre-money valuation, the founders + Ballmer kept control. Because the valuation was high and the investment small, the VC had little effect on how the money was distributed.

I say this because, never taking VC is not a great long term business goal. Accepting outside investment is a business decision and one that in Microsoft's case probably helped all their employees and certainly did not hurt them.

[1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/microsoft

meagher 8 years ago |

not an exit yet, but the MailChimp founders still own 100% of a 525M+ business.

And they send a lot of email, give back to their community (Atlanta, GA), and sponsor a lot of independent art and media (podcasts).

https://www.inc.com/magazine/201802/mailchimp-company-of-the...

picodguyo 8 years ago |

Not a software play, but RxBar recently sold for $600M with no VC.

https://www.inc.com/robbie-abed/this-chicago-startup-sold-it...

fab1an 8 years ago |

Pardot (B2B Marketing Automation SaaS) was afaik entirely bootstrapped and sold to ExactTarget (now SalesForce) for ~100M. https://www.saastr.com/a-real-life-saas-case-study-eloqua-ma...

tedmiston 8 years ago |

There's probably a bias here around bootstrapped founders exiting at lower valuations because the take home of 100% of 10M is easier to get than 5% of 200M.

I made up the numbers here but I think many founders are happy to get that first or second base hit of change your life but not quite FU money safety net vs VC money forcing the bipolar choice between home run or strike out.

hjjiehebebe 8 years ago | |

Are you saying 10M isn't fuck you money? Its not rich but with planning you can live middle class support a family and not work again.

seattle_spring 8 years ago | | |

Give it a few hours. Sooner or later, someone will chime in saying that living on $400k a year is "basically poverty" in SF or Silicon Valley.

tedmiston 8 years ago | | |

Not really after capital gains taxes.

You've got enough to buy a house in SF, put your kids through college, and not have to work again, for let's say 50 years with a decent annual spend, if you put most of it into a retirement account.

claudiulodro 8 years ago |

ViralNova was just one dude with a couple freelance writers and sold for $$$.[1]

That was in 2014. In 2018 it is way more difficult to bootstrap an online content company (Would love to be proven wrong with an example though).

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/zealot-media-buys-scott-delon...

prakster 8 years ago |

Also, not $100M+, but ShipStation sold to Stamps.com for $75 Million in 2014.

muzani 8 years ago |

If you don't count tech companies, plenty of non tech conglomerates, restaurants, even things like cosmetics and trading make it big on just their savings and bank loans.

bdibs 8 years ago |

It wasn’t an exit, but GitHub didn’t raise money until they got a $100MM investment at a $650MM pre-money valuation.

rstoj 8 years ago | |

Similar situation with Grammarly which bootstrapped for a very long time (9y) and then raised $100M: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/grammarly

prakster 8 years ago |

Any recent examples in the $100 Million plus arena?

troydavis 8 years ago | |

One reason these are rare: if a bootstrapped company is valued at $100+ million, a small minority investment - say, 10% - is very meaningful cash for the company yet involves relatively little dilution and little or no loss of control. It gets a lot harder to justify not raising something.

(And yes, a bootstrapped business worth over $100MM is probably generating a meaningful profit, but the founders may not be comfortable reinvesting it.)

nostrademons 8 years ago | | |

It also helps build relationships and align incentives with powerful firms that can be very useful in arranging an exit and getting the best price for it.

Microsoft took a small mezzanine round right before they went public. They didn't need the cash, but it brought investment bankers on board so that they had an incentive to get the best possible price in the IPO. Similar story with Whatsapp; they didn't need the cash, but having Sequoia on board gave them a stamp of approval that probably helped their negotiating leverage both in attracting employees and in selling to Facebook.

hjjiehebebe 8 years ago |

Does a floatation count? WiseTechGlobal in Australia floated for 1bn last year, market cap gone up 3x since. Completely bootstrapped AFAIK.