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Groupon Could Challenge Google's Record IPO
jbrodkin writes "Months after spurning Google's $6 billion takeover bid, Groupon may topple Google's IPO record with an initial public offering worth $25 billion. Google went public in 2004 with a $24.6 billion valuation and Groupon seems to be on the verge of an IPO worth even more, Dow Jones VentureSource says. Even if Groupon doesn't break Google's record, it seems likely to become only the fifth venture-backed company to achieve a $10 billion valuation at the time of its IPO."
Groupon has a great business idea, AND it's mainly targeted to girls and women who also spend a lot for beauty things. They make shitloads of money as well as does the partner companies and their users. Win-win-win.
I bet the stock is at 5 bucks in 3 years.
Wall St. can't keep itself from trying to blow up investment bubbles.
There's a sucker born every minute (and then the taxpayers bail the investment banks out).
I see a lot of useless coupons and services when I visit. Some "coupons" require me to buy in. Compared to deal sites like Woot or dealcatcher, I'm not seeing the allure. Typically, most of the "deals" are things like salons and jewerly/makeup which makes me think this is mostly a service for women.
Groupon makes a lot of money. Groupon also has a massive amount of debt. They secured about a billion dollars in funding during a recent 'investment round'.
We are talking about a billion dollars in funding to run a website that requires no novel technology, has no valuable intellectual property, and doesn't have much of a competitive advantage. There isn't anything stopping other companies and people from creating more Groupon clones (as is obviously evidenced by competitors like LivingSocial and Google's upcoming daily deals site).
The VCs must be really desperate for a success story, considering all the 'most innovative companies' coming out of silicon valley have no business model. They want to make money off of one of the pseudo-profitable organizations while they can. Welcome to doctom bubble 2.0.
Am I the only one, or do all the groupon advertisements put anyone else off?
I love the concept of groupon it’s really quite brilliant but for some reason all their ads and even their name totally puts me off. They feature food I like, but it doesn’t look appetising for some reason I can’t put my finger on. Also phrasing like “hot dang” appears to have a negative effect on me.
This isn’t meant to be a troll or anything, I’m legitimately curious. I know I'm not the coupon type, but it seems weird that they put me off so completely.
This is what we value in this country. Companies that spam coupons for the masses to buy more shit they don't need. So Wall St. intends on pumping 25 billion into a company that doesn't actually even manufacturer anything. A company whose only value is that it offers discounts to other companies! So in ten years, is their going to be a gang-groupon.com, that groupon pays to send out links to its own coupon links? The service based slave wage economy of the future is going to be quite sad indeed.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
... according to one inflation calculator, the $24.6 billion of Google's IPO in 2004 is worth $28.82 billion in 2011 dollars.
How is this company even worth $12 billion? Seriously, even first post at half off coupons aren't worth that.
It's not worth the money. We'll just have to wait for a Groupon link to the 'IPO Deal' where we can get 10 shares for the price of 4 if we buy them the day after tomorrow.
Now if it is on stuff that doesn't interest you, well then don't bother. Can't say I use it much myself. However the point is that if you see a deal you like, you buy in. You then get a large reduction in the cost, often 50%. That can be very worth it.
Why does Groupon retain the "tipping point" for all their deals? My understanding is that Groupon is the second or third iteration in a series that was based on this idea, and I suppose it was interesting when they were still a startup, no one had heard of them and businesses wanted a little insurance on their investment. But now that they're big, I don't see how it's still relevant. Since they started getting big press, has there been a single Groupon in any market that has failed to hit the tipping point?
Today's deal in Seattle tipped at 100 before 7AM and there are currently over 3000 purchases, with about 50 taking place just within the span of me writing this post. If anything, it seems like the right move now would be to emphasize purchasing before selling out, a la woot.
Part of Groupon's value is that they help businesses plan deals and write excellent and differentiating copy to sell them, and they do a good job of it, so I don't see why they still have the tipping point mechanic. Does anyone even look at it when they evaluate a deal?
Perhaps with a new restaurant to get the word out it works, but every Groupon rest. we've been to in the last year failed.
I don't think that's Groupon's fault, however. I think a Groupon deal is a very good indicator if a restaurant is struggling.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .