Besides its founders, the Facebook-WhatsApp deal also means a lot to Sequoia Capital, which invested $8 million into the service in 2011. The deal was led by Jim Goetz, who also invested in AdMob and Palo Alto Networks. To date, Sequoia is the only venture partner in WhatsApp.
The holding is valued at about $3.5 billion after Facebook offered as much as $19 billion for the company, said the people, who asked not to be identified because details of the investment are private. A stake of 15 per cent would yield about $3.5 for the venture capitalist firm.
