Reports began to surface in August of rumoured talks between Cyanogen Inc. and several big players in the tech world, including Microsoft, prompting speculation of a buyout. It turns out that Google was one of those players, but has been turned down by Cyanogen according to a report from The Information.
Cyanogen is now reportedly entering discussions for a third round of funding with late-stage investors, seeking a valuation of around US$1 billion. Cyanogen’s previous round of funding managed to raise US$22 million, making such a large valuation an unlikely prospect.
If that wasn’t enough, Cyanogen has also advised potential investors that that it has struck a deal with Indian manufacturer Micromax to bring CyanogenMod to its devices. Curiously, Micromax is also a launch partner for Google’s Android One initiative. This has prompted speculation that Cyanogen are planning to remove Google from the picture entirely in much the same way as Amazon has done with Fire OS.
Do you think Cyanogen could successfully take on Google? Is a US$1 billion valuation realistic? Give us your thoughts in the comments.
$1 billion is not what they are worth. They repackage Google’s software, add some twists, and give it away for free. They should have taken the deal. Without Google services, I fail to see why anyone would want it, in India or anywhere else. This is the same reason the Fire phone flopped.
This might as well be the only post in this discussion it is so direct, covers my thoughts exactly. I would jump at the chance to team up with Google and work on the next evolution of AOSP. CM Sounding pretty greedy to me.