Since the acquisition was a 100% stock transaction (and the acquirer is still a private company), this is more of a "let's join forces" type deal than an exit arrangement.
That suggests to me that exec shareholders now own less than 1/3 of handybook but probably more than 10%. Assuming the 12mn in funding has bought exactly 1/2 of the company, then handybook's most recent post money would be ~ 24mn. 10mn in new stock --> 10/34 as the share owned by exec. Probably more than 10% bc that's the amount they'd own if handybook was valuing themselves at 100mn. I doubt that they are that high yet.
This looks to me less like a merger and more like a realization by exec that their value is at a global maximum -- once handybook cracks sf on their own the value of buying exec drops substantially.
In my opinion a shrewd move by all parties.
> "talks began in October"
> "they [HandyBook] had a much better and well-defined marking model and they had already developed what we were trying to iterate, but better."
Is this related to the departure of the people behind the https://giveit100.com/ around then? The non-technical founder was responsible for marketing at Exec, for example. I could imagine were I in her shoes and heard this back then I also would be looking for new work.
In terms of liquidity and it being "a sure thing", an acquihire would surely be better for Exec. But Justin Kan already has a few successful endeavors under his belt and probably isn't hurting for a quick check. Increasing his odds for a homerun probably makes more sense. The same probably goes for the investors.
For the employees on the other hand, an acquihire and subsequent retention package would most likely have a better EV/Risk ratio.