Friday, November 4, 2011

Pelago Gets To An IPO, Via Groupon

What do former stockholders and employees of Pelago, the former developer of the mobile social networking application Whrrl, have to cheer about this weekend? It turns out that at least part of the sale price of Pelago to Groupon back in April was in stock. Although it's not clear how much the actual sale of Pelago to Group was worth, if any employees benefited, or who was included, a number of stockholders there can at least say they were part of Groupon's IPO. Groupon's IPO filings show that 380,300 shares of Groupon stock went to shareholders at Pelago. Pelago's Co-founder and CEO, Jeffrey Holden, now serves as Senior Vice President of Groupon. The 380,300 shares were worth just under $10M after Groupon's first day as a public company.