“LaLa was purchased for $17 million by Apple, according to our sources with indirect knowledge of the deal,” Arrington reports. “And the company supposedly had $14 million in cash in the bank, meaning the actual purchase price was really $3 million.”
Arrington reports, “That’s in line with recent competitive sales like iLike ($20 million) and iMeem ($1 million). LaLa had plenty of cash in the bank, but they were burning $500k/month, say our sources. There’s just no reason Apple would pay $80 million for the company.”
“We also believe that LaLa was acquired mostly for the star engineering team and the awesome recent Google deal more than for the product. iTunes in the cloud isn’t something we should hold our breath for,” Arrington reports. “$3 million for top-of Google music results and a top team of engineers makes a lot of sense.”
Read more in the full article here.
That does makes more sense.
Yeah.
for sure
never made sense at 80m. now it certainly does at 3m.
MDN word “red” – as in, they were headed into the red really soon! lucky they all have stable jobs now.
$3M went to Lala, $77M went to a Nigerian princess. Sorry. It was my first day in accounting.
@HMCIV
No worries, I’m sure there’s a bailout program that can help.
Disclaimer: this is not a political comment, I’m just poking fun at HMCIV’s accounting skills.
wow, arrington can still keep his cool on reporting even after being betrayed by the joo joo
They may have great tech I hope Apple changes the name…”LaLa” is horrific.
microsuck spend more than that on a few crappy ads that achieve zero
shouldn’t all $17m come from apple, if apple is the one purchasing the company? why would lala use $14m of it’s own $$?
$3m is still petty cash for Apple! i’m sure someone saw the potential in that tiny company.
J @ http://no-spamming/
@ urlow
Apple pays $17 million and that is for all of Lala including it’s $14 Million cash in the Bank, The net buying cost for Apple is $3 Million +/- a few hundred thousand. As once Apple and Lala seal the deal and control of Lala is handed over to Apple, Apple takes control of the company’s money and other assets along with all the companies liabilities. So, the net effect is about a $3 Million cost to buy Lala for Apple.
Why not just offer the star team a job?
it’s amazing that people still believe and give credence to today’s yellow green (as in puke) writers and the incredible from the cuff shit they write.
It’s even more amazing that people don’t hesitate to invest money based on this crap.
Gossip and innuendo, distort and short etc… used to be National Enquirer fodder – today that’s what the mainstream is …shallow and mediocre at best. Idiots.
No liabilities?
They ‘raised’ 35 million?
What, they planted pennies and grew them to maturity?
Q. How can you tell if a journalist is lying?
A. His lips are moving.
@Fergman: The star team could be under contract and couldn’t be hired away by Apple.
The pop-up tabs associated with this site are getting really intrusive. If this continues I’m going to have to get my Mac news elsewhere.
There is zero proof that Apple has even bought this company. I am not aware that Apple has acknowledged the purchase.
This is speculation “proved” by more speculation.
Until I hear it from Apple…
@TowerTone: it depends on how they raised the money. Venture capitalists write contracts to protect their interests; typically, they’ll state that if the company is acquired, they get paid back first from the proceeds. If the proceeds don’t cover their investment, then they lose money. That’s why there is lots of risk associated with venture capital. So, the company raised 35 million. Their sale price was 20. The VCs are paid back, on average, a bit more than half their investment. Apple takes over, withdraws $17M from the bank, and is out a total of $3M for the company, its intellectual property, and its contractual rights and obligations.
I hear you, Jamie. I hate those things.
@Fergman:
You can’t just offer everyone a job due to non-compete agreements, the fact that not everyone would come over, the pain of dealing with individual negotiations (especially once the engineers realized Apple wanted all of them). Plus, you wouldn’t get the assets of LaLa, such as the contract with Google or other technology. I’m sure there’s something being developed at LaLa that Apple wants that has not surfaced yet.
@Nobama
Q. How can you tell if a journalist is READING?
A. His lips are moving.
(Jamie Sidey said) ..
“….The pop-up tabs associated with this site are getting really intrusive. If this continues I’m going to have to get my Mac news elsewhere….”
You must be a new(er) reader of MDN ..
’cause everytime someone complains of the ads (here) ..
someone else always points them to ..
this link ..
Hope this helps !
If you think the ads are bad here, would you pay money to make them disappear?
Would you pay to read what MDN posts? Because that’s the path we’re going down.