The interest by Google has seen a scramble of people entering the space and other companies in the general space being acquired; what TheStreet is calling the Groupon Halo Effect.
"On the heels of the announcement that Amazon(AMZN_) is investing $175 million in Groupon's #2, LivingSocial.com, and that eBay(EBAY_) is buying Milo.com, local advertising stocks were red hot Friday. Google, Amazon and eBay are stoking the interest in companies that focus on marketing small businesses," TheStreet reported.
Groupon has decided to pass on Google's offer of $6 billion to acquire its company, according to numerous news reports. Interesting to say the least, "If Google had acquired Groupon for up to $6 billion, the deal would have been the largest for a venture-backed company since 1999 and the third largest acquisition on record, according to Dow Jones VentureSource," the Wall Street Journal noted. There have only been two larger acquisitions on record for venture-backed companies, everyone has to be wondering what the VC guys are thinking right now.
"As for Web acquisitions, Google would have owned two of the three largest acquisitions of venture-backed Internet companies. The Groupon purchase would have moved eBay's $2.5 billion acquisition of Skype in 2005 into the number two spot. Google's $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube in 2006 would become the third-largest," WSJ.com noted.
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