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Zendesk’s final selling price is a warning shot for unicorns



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Zendesk this morning agreed to sell itself to an investor consortium for $10.2 billion in cash, or $77.50 per share. The deal comes months after the U.S. software company declined a $17 billion offer.
The Zendesk saga of 2021 and 2022 has been complicated, full of twists and turns. That it is closing out its life as a public company by selling at a discount to a deal it rejected earlier in the year underscores both how rapidly the market has repriced the value of software revenues and how a falling share price can lead to management choices today that run counter to that same leadership team’s perspective a few short quarters ago.
Let’s run through a refresher on the deal itself, discuss the final price tag in light of Zendesk’s latest earnings results and close with a short riff on what the transaction could portend for unicorns and smaller public technology companies alike.
How did Zendesk get here?
Today’s news doesn’t appear to be a good sign for undervalued SaaS companies, but Zendesk has na …

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