Yahoo’s purchase of Xobni smells like a real stinker for Khosla Ventures and other VC backers, which last year valued the email software maker at more than $90 million.
Yahoo did not disclose the amount that it is paying for Xobni (inbox spelled backwards). Tech news site AllThingsD is reporting the price at between $30 million and $40 million, although peHub was not able to independently confirm the price or whether other terms might have made the deal more palatable for shareholders. We sought comment via email from partners at Xobni investors Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital and RRE Ventures and will update this story with any comments.
The amount reportedly paid for the company is not only well below Xobni’s most recent VC valuation, but it also would barely cover the amount VCs invested in San Francisco-based Xobni.
Xobni raised more than $35 million at progressively higher valuations over multiple rounds from seven different VC firms from 2007 to 2012, according to Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB). Startup database CrunchBase reports that Xobni has raised close to $42 million.
Most recently, Xobni raised a $10 million Series D round in February 2012 from Khosla Ventures, Relay Ventures and RRE Ventures that valued the company at $91 million, according to Thomson Reuters. Prior to that, it raised an $11.3 million Series C round at a valuation of $63.45 million in April 2010, Thomson Reuters reports. The investors in the Series C round round were Khosla, Relay and RRE, as well as Atomico Ventures, Baseline Ventures, Cisco Systems and First Round Capital.
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