WhatsApp isn't best all-time VC exit: Here's a rundown

21FEBRUARY2014

The $19 billion Facebook has agreed to pay for WhatsApp is about $18.9 billion more than the startup raised in venture funding. That is at least the third biggest gap between money raised and exit value of the past 14 years, according to a report from PitchBook data.
The biggest gap since 1999, according to the Seattle research firm, was the $81 billion IPO of Facebook itself in 2012. That was about $78.6 billion more than the social networking business raised before going public.
PitchBook said its information is spotty on some older exits, with Seattle-based Immunex as a prime example. The biotech company shows up at No. 2 with a nearly $21 billion difference between announced funding and its IPO in 2000.
But Pitchbook says a big hole in its data in the 1980s and 1990s probably leaves out at least a few rounds of Immunex funding.
That would make WhatsApp probably the second biggest funding/exit valuation gap on this list.
Other huge exits by Silicon Valley companies that made PitchBook's Top 15 include the IPOs of Twitter, Zynga, Workday and LinkedIn.
Here is a modified list of PitchBook's top funding/exit valuation gaps. I have left out five exits that happened before 2000 or that the firm said is likely to have missing rounds:
 
1. Facebook: $78.6 billion; 2012 IPO.
2. WhatsApp: $18.9 billion; 2014 sale.
3. Twitter: $12.1 billion; 2013 IPO.
4. Groupon: $11.6 billion; 2011 IPO.
5. Cerent: $6.6 billion; 1999 sale.
6. Zynga: $6.1 billion; 2011 IPO.
7. CoSine Communications: $6.1 billion; 2000 IPO.
8. Chromatis Networks: $4.5 billion; 2000 sale.
9. Workday: $4.2 billion; 2012 IPO.
10. LinkedIn: $4.1 billion; 2011 IPO.

AJAY SINGH THAKUR
PGDM 2nd Sem