When asked about the latest rumors about acquisition and valuation, Dianping Co-founder Edward Long rejected all saying there would be no acquisition or IPO in the near future at TechCrunch Shanghai today.
One rumor said that Baidu valued it at about $2 billion. Zhang Tao, founder and , CEO of Dianping, responded on it saying the company would like to go public in five years at an estimated valuation of more than $10 billion. Though Mr. Long declined to comment on the valuation of the ten-year-old Dianping, he disclosed that Google China valued it at less than $100 million when it offered to acquire Dianping at the end of 2006 and in early 2007.
Dianping turned ten in April this year. As of the third quarter of 2013, the service had more than 75 million monthly active users, 28 million reviews and 6 million merchants that in 2300 cities, disclosed by the company. Monthly pageviews was over 2.5 billion, with 70% from mobile. Mobile app installs are over 80 million. Headquartered in Shanghai, Dianping now has over 3000 employees with offices in more than 40 Chinese cities.
Currently Dianping makes revenues from e-membership cards, e-coupons and advertising. It opened up the platform to third parties in early this year promising to share revenues with them.
Mr. Long said their goal is to become a Taobao-like e-commerce platform for offline services.
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