This all based on a ton of speculation. There are three big unknowns as I see it:
-Nobody really knows the details of the offer.
-Nobody really knows what Xobni has in store.
-Nobody really knows how much say the VC's had.
Most companies start with a feature that becomes a product which becomes a company. The Outlook plugin could be the tip of a much bigger spear. I have never used xobni b/c I don't use outlook but I can see a bunch of possible directions for them. Who knows though? Maybe it is a minor feature. But anyone in a startup knows enough to know how little they know about the inner workings of another company. And anyone who's tried to raise money knows how thoroughly you have to explain your long term plans and revenue models. If you can't say I'm going to be a $100 million dollar company in X years b/c of Y and Z reasons, you're not going to get a series A. You'd also know that $20 million is a small offer after a series A.
Re your point on having to thoroughly explain your revenue model to investors, there are some VCs/investors who are happy to let this emerge, odd as that may sound. For instance, I believe that Fred Wilson [of A VC blog fame] has commented along these lines about his investment in Twitter. In some of these instances, the plan appears to be to focus on building a large active user base, preferably one that gets "locked in" via a network effect and then figuring out how to monetise.
I am interested to hear about the "bunch of possible directions" you can see. Can you elaborate?
-Nobody really knows the details of the offer.
-Nobody really knows what Xobni has in store.
-Nobody really knows how much say the VC's had.
Most companies start with a feature that becomes a product which becomes a company. The Outlook plugin could be the tip of a much bigger spear. I have never used xobni b/c I don't use outlook but I can see a bunch of possible directions for them. Who knows though? Maybe it is a minor feature. But anyone in a startup knows enough to know how little they know about the inner workings of another company. And anyone who's tried to raise money knows how thoroughly you have to explain your long term plans and revenue models. If you can't say I'm going to be a $100 million dollar company in X years b/c of Y and Z reasons, you're not going to get a series A. You'd also know that $20 million is a small offer after a series A.