[kareemm]

Not if they anticipated raising more money later. Raising at $100M means they were setting themselves up for a down-round when they next raised (i.e. raising at less than $100M).

Unless they're extremely confident that they'd be valued at more than $100M in their next financing round, raising at less than $100M sounds like the smart, um, path.

[kmfrk]

But isn't this problematic, since they would have to raise more money later on, considering that they'll be diluting their shares a lot.

Doing a $5M seed round at a $25M valuation after Google's offer is, what, a dilution of 20% total shares?

I get that they can't do an evaluation that is higher than the next one, but they must really have recented taking the offer - perhaps for reasons of working at Google for four years for the $25M bonus.