Facebook’s Buying Spree: Why it Spent $25B on 14 Companies

Like it or not, Facebook is now a titan from almost every angle. With over 1 billion users, almost $8 billion of revenue and $1.5 billion in net income, the company has cash to burn.

The company is also not shy about snatching up talent for its future ambitions. In the last few years, Facebook has made 14 big acquisitions, and spent over $25B on them.

One area Facebook sees a lot of traction in is messaging. The acquisition of WhatsApp in February has certainly led to some additional expertise in this area, and the company recently announced that their new Facebook Messenger service reaches 500 million people.

The recent massive numbers coming out of the tech space have led some investors and venture capitalists to feel that tech stocks – particularly social media stocks – are overvalued. As Clem Chambers of Forbes wrote in July: “So what about Facebook? A near 100 P/E?? An approximately 20 times market cap to sales?? I’m rounding these numbers because to think Facebook is not massively overvalued needs magical thinking not math. Will it go up from here? Why not?”