Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
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Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
1–10 of 65 posts
Re: Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
#2No discussion of terms.
Re: Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
#3No discussion of terms.
Per Recode: Ford declined to tell us how much they paid for the San Francisco-based startup but said it was an all-cash transaction.
Per CrunchBase, Chariot only raised a $3M seed round a year ago (https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/chariot-3#/entity). Given the low-margin nature of the business (many other startups along these lines died out), I'm curious what dollar amount would make sense.
Re: Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
#4No discussion of terms.
Per Recode: Ford declined to tell us how much they paid for the San Francisco-based startup but said it was an all-cash transaction. Per CrunchBase, Chariot only raised a $3M seed round a year ago ( https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/chariot-3#/entity ). Given the low-margin nature of the business (many other startups along these lines died out), I'm curious what dollar amount would make sense.
Good for those guys. I'm curious as well.
Re: Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
#5No discussion of terms.
Per Recode: Ford declined to tell us how much they paid for the San Francisco-based startup but said it was an all-cash transaction. Per CrunchBase, Chariot only raised a $3M seed round a year ago ( https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/chariot-3#/entity ). Given the low-margin nature of the business (many other startups along these lines died out), I'm curious what dollar amount would make sense.
Almost certainly an amount that wipes out common stock holders. People they want to keep will get a retention offer, but with the acknowledgment that their stock in Chariot is now worth $0.
Re: Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
#6Yeah the next market is obviously Austin, they've been hiring for ops and marketing for months now. I know because I've been watching and waiting forever for Chariot to come here and show Capital Metro how modern, efficient transit is done.
Re: Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Per Recode: Ford declined to tell us how much they paid for the San Francisco-based startup but said it was an all-cash transaction. Per CrunchBase, Chariot only raised a $3M seed round a year ago ( https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/chariot-3#/entity ). Given the low-margin nature of the business (many other startups along these lines died out), I'm curious what dollar amount would make sense.
Almost certainly an amount that wipes out common stock holders. People they want to keep will get a retention offer, but with the acknowledgment that their stock in Chariot is now worth $0.
Why? The app and logistics software might be worth it. That being said a purchase for $30m may have been announced. It will be interesting to see how the vanpool model can scale... Clearly too many cars on the roads and not necessarily needed for the day to day commutes.
Re: Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost certainly an amount that wipes out common stock holders. People they want to keep will get a retention offer, but with the acknowledgment that their stock in Chariot is now worth $0.
Why? The app and logistics software might be worth it. That being said a purchase for $30m may have been announced. It will be interesting to see how the vanpool model can scale... Clearly too many cars on the roads and not necessarily needed for the day to day commutes.
> a purchase for $30m may have been announced.
I was wild-guessing around the same ballpark too.
Here is some simple math I was thinking:
$3M round (a year ago) would have valued them around $10M.
Since then, then would probably have doubled or tripled their valuation, getting them to $20M to 30M at this point.
Re: Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Per Recode: Ford declined to tell us how much they paid for the San Francisco-based startup but said it was an all-cash transaction. Per CrunchBase, Chariot only raised a $3M seed round a year ago ( https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/chariot-3#/entity ). Given the low-margin nature of the business (many other startups along these lines died out), I'm curious what dollar amount would make sense.
Almost certainly an amount that wipes out common stock holders. People they want to keep will get a retention offer, but with the acknowledgment that their stock in Chariot is now worth $0.
First of all, the story doesn't mention anything about the size of the deal.
Second of all, the company is selling after ~2 years. The average employee has probably been there for less than 1 year. Excluding the common stock of the founders (since they are the ones who made the decision to sell), employee common stock grants and common stock options are all about ensuring employees get a share of blockbuster company results, like IPOs or 8/9 figure acquisitions.
In the case of smaller acquisitions (of which this might have been or might not have been), stock options are probably not worth very much because the company hasn't grown that much. Nobody is at fault, nobody got screwed, its just how stock works. That is why employees are paid salaries. This is why employees often get generous retention offers from the acquiring company. Nobody is being "wiped out" because that assumes there was inherent value to begin with, which there isn't.
Re: Ford Acquires Chariot (YC W15)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost certainly an amount that wipes out common stock holders. People they want to keep will get a retention offer, but with the acknowledgment that their stock in Chariot is now worth $0.
Why? The app and logistics software might be worth it. That being said a purchase for $30m may have been announced. It will be interesting to see how the vanpool model can scale... Clearly too many cars on the roads and not necessarily needed for the day to day commutes.
My thinking:
1) If they were doing well and got a $30m buyout offer, they'd probably have gone out to raise more money for a much higher valuation. Money is cheap, and if they have an offer in that range, a VC would probably cut them a check within an hour.
2) Buyouts generally benefit founders & investors, and common stock holders don't get much. They'll get a retention bonus or something depending on how important they are deemed, but other than that, unlikely that they'll walk away with what their on-paper ownership seemed to be worth.
I'm fairly jaded on this mostly from having watched friends get giddy about their company being acquired, then getting their paperwork and realizing that their stock is now worth $0, and if they want their $100k bonus, it's distributed in a back-loaded earn-out over 4 years (sometimes with conditions that they hit certain targets that aren't realistic). I've seen it happen (again, to friends/acquaintances) in most price points (~$5m, ~$50m and ~$100m), unfortunately.
Granted it's anecdotal, so I could be very wrong! But in general I think common shareholders are wiped out.