Groupon to raise $950m in massive funding round

Up and coming e-commerce coupon website Groupon has been given the go ahead to raise up to $950m in a massive equity financing round. The company, which recently turned its back on a stellar $6bn takeover offer from Google, said it planned to sell shares at $31.59 each, according to a state of Delaware filing cited by Reuters …

[muninsfire]

No such thing as bad publicity

I suspect that, if it was not deliberately cultivated, the overtures from Google to Groupon were at least taken advantage of to raise the company's profile to attract this sort of funding.

A good example of publicity in action.

[Ian Michael Gumby]

The bid by Google wasn't for publicity.

Google wants in to this space. That is the 'local' relationship space. Google has been horrible on building relationships. One could consider their lack of acumen to be due to arrogance or bad manners.

Google failed against Netflix which AFAIK El Reg reported on this as well as the regular press like CNN (Money).

Groupon gives them 2 things. A patent which is a barrier to entry by competitors, and a built in customer base.

IMHO Groupon should have taken the 6 Billion deal from Google. They are not worth that much and Google would have lost a lot of face. Of course being the 'Chocolate Factory'... they can always print up whatever money they want. And one has to ask if Google could have swung the deal through the FTC and EU.

[Turtle]

An unanswered question.

It is not possible for me to believe that the actual value of Groupon based on the income it generates, even comes close to justifying a price of even a tenth of Google's offer. And not even a tenth of the $950 million that Groupon wants to raise.

What I don't understand, is how all these stupid people managed to get all this money that they're throwing away.

[Alien Doctor 1.1]

Is it just me...

or do I sniff another bubble being inflated?

A six billion dollar offer from Google? A floatation valuation of 6.5 to 8 billion dollars? For a frigging coupon company.

Methinks the '90's are coming around again.

[brym]

Also...

Doesn't Groupon predominantly use Google as an advertising platform? If so, bit of a win for both parties anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are they worth anything? What is the business model? Target date for profit?

Occasionally I click on their irritating ads, for research purposes. Perhaps I'm not their target market, perhaps their reader profiling is broken, but as yet I've never seen their coupons offer a discount on anything of interest to me or to *anybody* I might know.

[joshimitsu]

@AC 11:48

I was a Groupon skeptic, until I tried it out. It's true, most of the deals are for spas and restaurants, but sometimes stuff comes up that you never would have considered.

That was part of the appeal, it gets you into trying stuff out.

I'm off to book my skydiving lesson!

Big flappy overcoat needed in case the chute fails...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm off to book my skydiving lesson!"

Lucky you, groupon got you an alleged discount that's about as real as the TV-advertised DFS furniture sale discounts (if you can't get a worthwhile "discount" on that kind of discretionary spend leisure activity thing without groupon, you're not trying, and if you believe the DFS discounts, you're mad).

Meanwhile, where's the business model?

[rxdg]

RE: An unanswered question

Groupon actually posts about a billion dollar yearly revenue (USD). So a $6 billion dollar valuation for a pre-IPO company that hasn't been around too long but growing like crazy is fairly conservative.