DigitalOcean raises $100M in debt as it scales toward revenue of $300M

What is their current valuation? I wondered if google or microsoft would buy them, amazon can't due to anti-trust issues, but the others might be able to.

Raising $100M in debt is the same as borrowing $100M, right?

Crunchbase estimates $500M-$1B range https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/digitalocean#section...

Those are two ways to phrase the same thought, yes, but there are things about raising corporate debt which don't necessarily line up 1:1 with expectations consumers might have about borrowing money.

One example, which is de rigeur for raising debt via bond issuance or for very large loans from banks, is "covenants" (restrictions on your future behavior for the duration the debt is in place), which may foreclose your ability to do things you'd otherwise want to do or may cause those things to become more costly than you'd otherwise expect them to be.

A few trivial examples of covenants: "Here's $50 million, but if you ever have less than $5 million in the bank, you're in default." or "Here's $50 million, but if your net cash burn ever exceeds $5 million in a quarter, you're in default." or "Here's $50 million, but if you need any more money, it has to come from us at whatever pricing we decide to make available. If you issue debt or equity elsewhere, you're in default."

You very urgently do not want to default.

One can imagine other features. Historically, the downside protections for debt investors in startups were extremely toothy [0]. This is one reason startups have been askance about raising debt historically. (Another reason is that VCs, who invest to get equity, tell founders "Please don't get money from my competitors", generally not in exactly those words.)

[0] This is a polite way to say "They routinely were written to wipe out all common equityholders like e.g. employees and founders."