The acquisition was in stock and cash. So the VCs that put up the $50M may have just gotten $100M in pre-IPO Facebook stock, which may well dramatically increase their return post IPO.
This has to be mostly stock...how much cash does FB even have? Enough to casually hand out hundreds of millions?
Ahhh....good point. That does change the formula a bit, but even still...what's the likely 1 year return on pre-IPO FB stock? 3X if so much? I doubt it.
Anyway, it's better than 2X, so I guess they can't be pissed.
But, quite possibly, it could be .5X, or .25X... Current FB valuation is somewhere around 25X revenue ...
Honestly, in the tech industry, a 25 P/E ratio is yawned at.