| Was an employee at six-person tech company that was acquihired. We went through a process with 7 companies (at least - founder tried to drum up interest with others), team interviewed with 4, we got 3 offers, and the founder chose the one that best fit the narrative. Answering from that perspective. 1) To maximize your chances, you need to speak with multiple companies and get multiple offers. Offers fall through so it's good to have backups and be able to tell potential acquirers that there is other real interest to up the urgency. If you haven't already told your team, you should tell them so they can prepare for interviewing with potential acquirers. If the majority of the team doesn't pass their interviews and/or is not a good fit for the company, they will pass. If a single person does not pass, they might decide to offer the whole team roles besides that person (happened to us). 2) Packages vary based on what you have to offer and how you can sell the team. In our case, investors got some shares in the acquirer (didn't match their ownership in the company, but at least they got something), there was a big PR campaign that saved face for the founder/investors/team, and the employees (including me) got solid base offers in addition to a small equity bump beyond our base grants. 3) From when I was told to when the deal was done, it took ~2-2.5 months. There was definitely some work the founder did prior to letting the team know, like gauging interest with founders/executives of the potential acquirers. 4) I wouldn't worry about this since you don't know what environment you are going into. In my case, it took a while for employees at the acquirer (~100 employees) to accept the the rest of the team and me, but ended up working out (we all stayed at least a year, most of us 2+ years). Stop all work that isn't trying to sell the company and preparing for interviews. You may want to consider raising a bit more to bridge for another 3-4 months so you are covered if the acquisition process takes longer (e.g. during the summer key people might be out of office). This will also allow you to convince other potential acquirers that there is "synergy" to bringing your team and you in. |
Couple of follow ups
1) What stage was your company at / how much had the startup raised when you got acquihired? Just curious about how this compares to where we are.
2) What was the interview process like? Any details would be helpful for me to get our team prepared