Google buys YouTube for stunning $1.65Bn
What started off as a head-line on WSJ on Friday is now official. Google buys YouTube for an amazing $1.65Bn in stocks according to various sources. Obviously, industry experts had expected such a move from either Google, Yahoo or Microsoft, but the speed of the acquisition comes as a surprise for many of us I believe.
Recommendation: Video is on the move! After the announcement of ProSiebenSat1 to acquire a minority stake in the German YouTube – myvideo - , the recent Google / YouTube deal is another sign, that expectations are high in user generated content / video.
Takeaway: Apparently a deal, which makes everybody happy! The three founders probably can each go home with a few hundred $M in their pockets. The investors behind this deal, notably Sequoia Capital, might have delivered a 41x return on invested money one this one year+ investment according to TechCrunch. Investors applaud the bold move by Google and send up the Google stock price by a few points in Monday’s late night trading. I am confident, that Video is still at the beginning and that we will see many more things - hopefully also here in good old
Europe - happening in this space.
October 10, 2006 at 12:18 pm
[...] With YouTube getting bought up by Google, which I won’t even link to as you all read about it already, the video space is really hotting up and I do expect that the German space will hot up too, as Jürgen Habichler notes here. [...]