Feeling the pulse of teenagers’ inactivity on its social network, Facebook has dangled more than $3 billion in cash to woo Snapchat, the popular photo-messaging start-up used by younger audiences.
However, the Los Angeles-based messaging app company, founded by 23-year-old Evan Spiegel, recently turned down the offer because it’s currently being courted by multiple investors, according to a source familiar with the matter. The two-year-old Snapchat has been approached with offers, including an investment from China’s Tencent Holdings that would value the start-up at $4 billion.
Snapchat’s mobile app allows people to send text and photos that disappear in what has been hailed as all the rage in a next wave of private social sharing.
According to various media reports, Facebook made an offer of ‘$3 billion or more, but Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel is opting to wait until 2014 in hopes of a better valuation for the company.
In October, Wall Street Journal put out a similar report, claiming that Facebook had offered to acquire Snapchat for $1 billion. Still another report in October indicated that Snapchat was looking to raise a round of funding that would value the company at roughly $3.5 billion. Snapchat has joined the list of tech companies — like Tumblr and Instagram — with no money coming in but multiple sky—high takeover offers.
So far, Snapchat’s leaders have balked at the offers in the hope of landing an even more lucrative deal.
