10 Surprising Facts About the WhatsApp Acquisition

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whatsapp acquisition

Watching Twitter during a big acquisition is fun. You get absolutely no work done, but the level of intelligence, snark, excitement, and sour grapes that comes across your feed makes it totally worth it.

rsz_incontentad2On the off chance you missed it, today Facebook announced the acquisition of WhatsApp in a $19 billion (BILLION) deal. The messaging app–which has enormous international usage–sold for $4 billion cash, $12 billion in Facebook shares, and $3 billion in restricted stock.

In case your math is as bad as mine, that’s 19 Instagrams. (We always thought Instagram sold too early.)

Here are some other little known facts and stats about the WhatsApp acquisition:

1. WhatsApp’s founders made about $5 billion EACH. (click to tweet)

2. Sequoia Capital, WhatsApp’s only investor, made $2.4 billion or enough to buy 17 of Tom Perkins’ yachts. (click to tweet)

3. At acquisition WhatsApp is worth 2 Staples + 2 Instagrams. (click to tweet)

4. Each employee at WhatsApp created as much value as the entire Washington Post did in 137 years. (click to tweet)

5. In one day, WhatsApp processes 4x as many messages as there are humans on the planet. (click to tweet)

6. In the last 9 months, WhatsApp added 1 million users a day. (click to tweet)

7. WhatsApp has 2.5x more active users than Twitter. (click to tweet)

8. By market cap, WhatsApp is the 200th largest company in America. (click to tweet)

9. WhatsApp is worth the same as Kroger, with 6,000x fewer employees. (click to tweet)

10. NASA’s 2014 budget: $17b. WhatsApp: $19b. (click to tweet)

Bonus fact: WhatsApp is worth more than Southwest, Coach, Chipotle, News Corp, Under Armor, Dr. Pepper & Tiffany. (click to tweet)