Google will acquire Facebook apps maker Slide for a reported $228 million in another effort to break into the social gaming market.
Google has agreed to pay $182 million for Slide, plus an extra $46 million in employee retention bonuses, in a deal expected to be announced today, sources toldTechCrunch.
Founded by former PayPal CEO Max Levchin, Slider is known for its portfolio of Facebook games, and these are probably the assets that Google is after.
Google was last month revealed to have been building a social gaming platform to help it compete with Facebook. Also in June, the company quietly invested over $100 million in social gaming company Zynga.
But Slide generates the majority of its revenue – 75% last year – from the trading of virtual goods on Facebook, Business Insidersaid.
The sale price is bound to be a disappointment for Levchin, who publicly stated plans to sell Slide for more than the roughly $1.5 billion he sold PayPal for. In a 2007 BusinessWeek article, a Slide investor said Levchin would view anything less as “an abject failure.”
Slide had been valued at $500 million in 2008, after its most recent funding round.
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