Saturday, April 7, 2007

Eyeballing the Value of Web 2.0 Startups


So how much is a Web 2.0 startup really worth? Everyone is wondering that these days, especially since there are so few acquisitions or IPOs by which to measure them. That's why I like the slide below created by eSnips CEO Yael Elish. It gives an approximate value for many high-profile Web 2.0 sites by correlating publicly available Alexa Web traffic numbers with the value of known deals like YouTube's. This slide is hardly accurate for many reasons (see below), but it does help you visualize how one company may be doing against another.

By her count, Wikipedia, YouTube*, and MySpace are in that rarefied realm of Web 2.0 sites worth more than $1 billion. Just below that are Flickr*, Facebook, and Hi5. In the $100 million to $500 million range are LinkedIn, Bebo*, Digg*, Feedburner, Last.fm*, and Technorati*. And just below the $100 million mark is StumbleUpon*, Slide*, and Netvibes*. She values eSnips on the chart at about $30 million. (The asterisked names made the Next Net 25 either in 2006 or 2007 ).

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