Snapchat Rejects $3B Offer From Facebook

Upstart sees a bigger payday ahead: Wall Street Journal
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 13, 2013 4:42 PM CST
Snapchat Rejects $3B Offer From Facebook
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel in Los Angeles.   (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The tech world is abuzz today with a Wall Street Journal report that photo-sharing service Snapchat got a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook—and said thanks, but no thanks. It seems that 23-year-old CEO Evan Spiegel isn't ready to even consider offers at this point given his company's growing number of users. Besides, Facebook may have undershot the mark—another offer reportedly in the work from China's Tencent Holdings values Snapchat at $4 billion, notes the Journal.

Snapchat's niche is that it allows users to send photos and messages that soon self-destruct. (Though there's some doubt about that.) "This makes it perfect for sharing naughty photos with loved ones, which isn’t advertised by Snapchat, but can be somewhat attributed to its popularity," writes Tom Cheredar at Venture Beat. It can't hurt that Wall Street bankers like it, too. The company currently has 100 million users. (More Snapchat stories.)

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