Slide has taken $50 million from Fidelity and T-Rowe Price, according to Brad Stone at the New York Times, exchanging a 9-percent stake of the company at a valuation of $500 million. Kara Swisher of BoomTown had first reported inklings of the news this morning.
Slide makes applications that live within social networks like Facebook — such as FunWall, Top Friends and SuperPoke — which are parasitic of other people’s users but also have interesting implications for interactions that are independent of those platforms.
Though I’d say people are right to be skeptical of the widget space, it’s both extremely popular and hotly contested. The expectations may be getting too high, though; Slide CEO Max Levchin has said he will not consider Slide a success until it is worth more than what he sold PayPal for: $1.58 billion.
9 trackbacks so far
1:43 PM PT
[...] Coverage over Mashable, Kara Swisher, GigaOM, Mathew Ingram and ValleyWag. addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Ftechnozzle.com%2F%3Fp%3D51′; [...]
5:52 PM PT
[...] not sure myself but I think that’s what is going in the minds of Slide investors. Obviously people are shocked at the valuation. Adam cites $1.40 for each installed application user. Which provides one way to [...]
7:19 PM PT
[...] *SuperPoking: more value than I ever dreamed. Facebook widget-making startup Slide has been valued at $500M. SEEMS LIKE A LOT. [giga om] [...]
5:44 PM PT
[...] GigaOM Technorati Tags: Slide,widget company,widget developers,widget brand Sphere: Related [...]
8:11 AM PT
[...] We recently saw East Coast mutual funds pump $50 million or so into San Francisco-based Slide at a massive half-a-billion dollar valuation (say [...]
3:33 PM PT
[...] Clearspring, begin to explore monetization strategies, and as widget makers such as Slide pull in large amounts of capital, the time to prove that widgets can make money is [...]
8:32 AM PT
[...] Clearspring, begin to explore monetization strategies, and as widget makers such as Slide pull in large amounts of capital, the time to prove that widgets can make money is [...]
5:00 AM PT
[...] valuation under fellow widget maker Slide’s, which was $550 million in its last $50 million round from two private equity funds. It’s also less than a reported $50-$70 million on a $400 [...]
12:14 AM PT
[...] raised money may bring company’s estimation under rival widget maker Slide which was $550 million in its last $50 million round from two private equity funds, which also was less than $50 million- [...]
5 comments so far
1:14 PM PT
Slide is a cool app, but it is nowhere near as valuable and/or practical as Paypal. Slide is rudimentary entertainment during a period of overvaluation of social networks. ALL entertainment products that are successful go through a period of rapid market adoption, then rapid decline.
This is an insane investment by Fidelity and T-Rowe Price - note that I am referring to the valuation, not the opportunity.
Great idea, great product, HUGE over valuation.
1:47 PM PT
$500 million? I’m surprised it’s valued at $10 million, let alone $500mm. Hey, it’s not my money, I don’t care if they throw it away.
1:49 PM PT
I’ve blocked just about every application they make- I understand how they appeal to people in high school, but eventually the market for annoying tests and facebook pokes will dwindle. People tend to add an application, use it once, and then leave it alone. This is not the type of user that justifies a $500 million valuation.
1:55 PM PT
There’s no doubt that their decision to concentrate on Facebook platform when it first launched, has brought them to this impressive valuation, which is like 7x the prior valuation.
It’s the facebook effect :)
I wrote about it here (link)
3:16 PM PT
Well, Its a lucrative venture but for accurate statistics a website has been setup called (link) , you can go there to make accurate valuations, its like a stock exchange for private companies.