Item — HN Reader

Got any data to back that up?

My anecdotal understanding was that HotelTonight was doing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Some component of that $130m may have been secondary stock sale.

I don't think we have enough data to determine what the price might have been, or how well employees will do.

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I’m referring to their last valuation of $400m in 2017. The company hasn’t hockeysticked since then, by any measure (e.g. App Store rank), so I think we can deduce the sale price was likely well below $1b, maybe 500m at very best but guessing lower. Factoring liquidation preferences for VCs and you get a small pie for most people involved.

> Factoring liquidation preferences for VCs and you get a small pie for most people involved.

Let's say HotelTonight was acquired for $500 mln. How much of that the founders could get at most based on the last valuation?

I don’t know what the terms are or how much the CEO/founder has. Assuming a 2x liquidation preference there would be $240m left after investors take their share. If the CEO has 5% then that’s $12m.

Pass through revenue isn't a great metric to value off of. It's a fancy and deceptive way to pass off a broker like a software company. If you pass through 70%-80% of your revenue, your revenue is more accurately stated as a net revenue. It's more akin to how we value traditional retailers in brick and mortar businesses, with low margin - think Best Buy.