A series of emails which were leaked as part of the massive cyber attack that hit Sony Pictures three weeks ago offer new insights into the workings of Snapchat.
Many have been left puzzled by the social messaging application's rocketing valuations. The app has a $12bn (€9.7bn)market valuation - four times the value of Manchester United.
Some of the messages cover the company's decision to reject Facebook's offer to buy the company. This deal was reported to be worth $3bn (€2.4bn) - but one of the leaked emails suggest that the real price was more.
Sony Entertainment CEO, Michael Lynton is a Snapchat board member. New Yorker journalist Malcolm Gladwell email him asking if they had really just turned down $3bn - he replied: "If you knew the real number you would book us all a suite at Bellvue [New York psychiatric hospital]."
Secret startups
Other leaked mails reveal details of secret deals that Snapchat made to buy a number of tech startups.
The company acquired Verge Labs for $15m. Its core product is Epiphany Eyewear - glasses with a built-in video camera. At the touch of a button the glasses can record in HD, and save the videos to a cloud storage account.
Footage filmed with the Epiphany Eyeware's glasses
Its models ranged from 8gb to 32gb storage, and are priced between $299 (€240) and $499 (€400).
Snapchat also bought Scan.Me, a QR code scanning app. According to TechCrunch the company paid a total of $50m for the company.
It was already known that Snapchat acquired AddLive, the startup that developed the software that Snapchat uses to power its real time video chat feature - from the emails we learn that they paid $10 million in cash and $20 million in stock and bonuses to buy the company.
Snapchat and Twitter?
The emails also reveal that Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo met with Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel in January, he wanted to talk about, "a couple big idea we [Twitter] have about working with Snapchat".
It is unclear if the idea of collaborating has dropped, or if it is still being pursued.
The source emails have been posted by TechCrunch.
