I've seen a few of these recently where Facebook "acquires the team." What does that mean, exactly? What happens to GazeHawk the product? Who owns it? Does it continue to operate? Who does Facebook pay? What happens to GazeHawk investors?
It doesn't mean anything, "exactly", and that is part of the point of the semi-vague wording.
Generally speaking when something is described as a "team acquisition" it means that the product they were working on was deemed unlikely to be successful. Technically what is happening here is some or all of the current team is being offered jobs at Facebook, quite possibly to work on something totally unrelated to whatever they were doing before.
Payments could range from nothing, to a token sum, to paying back the investors, depending on many factors. The founders may or may not get some kind of small bonus/signing bonus in the process.
These are usually regarded as "nobody gets rich, but maybe a couple of folks don't lose their asses" deals.
Guessing that means they are open to offers and if nothing comes along.. it will be shuttered..
I hadn't encountered it used in this way prior to the last year or so, and then only through tech writing. Origin is the closing of window shutters, I presume?
http://www.kone.com/countries/en_GB/Products/PedestrianDoors...
Thanks.
whats the term yahoo used? Sunset
I wonder how investors feel about aquihires like this. Do they structure term sheets to guarantee a payout if the founders abandon ship for a payday at a new job?
In some cases they received Facebook shares. Eg, FriendFeed sold to Facebook in return for Facebook shares. Obviously they are quite happy now with the deal that they made!