[therealarmen]

Lots of non-technology companies.

Out of tech companies -- Craigslist, Atlassian, 37Signals, possibly MailChimp.

Fringe examples -- Indeed sold for $1B and only took a small amount of later-stage funding [1] from USV. WhatsApp took $8M from Sequoia but apparently didn't spend any of it [2].

[1] http://avc.com/2012/09/indeed/

[2] http://forbesindia.com/article/the-worlds-billionaires/the-$...

[gsharma]

WhatsApp actually raised closer to $60M [1]

[1] http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/whatsapp

[applecore]

That story probably isn't true. Why would WhatsApp raise money if they weren't planning to spend any of it?

[danielharan]

For help selling the company? I'm sure there are a few VCs that know all the corp dev people and could more than double the final price.

[catshirt]

this is definitely not my forte but if VC thinks they could flip the company isn't there a more direct route than buying into a round for the sake of press?

[dave_sullivan]

You've got to own some shares to make money in an acquisition. It's not for the press.

[catshirt]

wish i could delete my comment, i wasn't thinking

[vecter]

Is 37Signals worth $1B?

[shreve]

Actually, they're valued at $100B.

http://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-v...

[catshirt]

i'm not typically a fan of the 37signals blog posts which come off to me as arrogant. this one makes me laugh though; it does a really effective job of poking fun at the broken parts of the VC model.

[brianfitz]

That article was intended to be a joke. 37signals (now Basecamp) is private and doesn't publicly announce revenue or profits -- though Jason has acknowledged both are in the millions.

[catshirt]

it's satirical but is it a joke? valuation is not a pure function of revenue and profit. unless i am missing something this valuation is as real as Twitter's or Facebook's. that's the joke.