Potentially stupid question: If they could sell the company today at $20-30mm, why would they take a pre-money valuation of only $15mm? Or is this standard for VCs to take a 'discount' on valuation? (instant upside!)
I know YC does this, but thought that was peculiar to that situation...
The last several acquisitions Google made (YouTube and JotSpot most notably) were, supposedly, driven by the VCs of those firms.
I'd be interested to hear more anecdotes from the field (or any comments debunking that), so does anyone have an experience they can share?