I guess because there wasn't too much growth for two years now? More or less stable after the main explosion of growth in early 2014.

Interesting to see the trend chart. At least PH kept their numbers over the past two years.

Exactly - the fact that the price is in acquihire territory is the real news. Playing it up as a 'success' is nothing more than marketing spin. The issue is, both AngelList and PH have a vested interest in letting people think that they made a great deal, so if sites like TC are going to talk it up as a 'genius move', they're certainly not going to say otherwise.

>> "The site is successful"

In what way? It has taken investment so it needs to eventually make money. How is going to monetise? Also, there is a limited audience for it so it's growth potential isn't great. Even as someone involved in tech and interested in startups I don't get much use out of it as most of the products aren't interesting or useful.

I thought $20 million was way too high.

The price is going to be some multiple on their revenue, I'd guess somewhere in the 4-6x range.

$20MM is enough to get investors ($7MM invested) off your back and let the acquisition go forward and there is plenty of opportunity for back-end deals where key players have an earn out not represented by the acquisition price.

The site was successful, but it doesn't look like it had a whole lot of potential for growth; more likely than not it already peaked and was losing steam due to an ever decreasing quality in submissions.

So much for a16z "genius" investors...