I think FLN going for a takeover makes sense but not to...

I think FLN going for a takeover makes sense but not to UPWK/FVRR. Why would these guys want FLN? They are taking FLN's users anyway, and they'd also be getting back a lot of the lower-quality freelancers that they've kicked out.

The ideal takeover company would be a company that's not already in the freelance market but wants to be. LinkedIn (despite their much ballyhooed entry as a competitor - doesn't seem to have done anything), Seek, etc. Even one of the Indian BPO firms?

There's a much bigger list of companies that are in adjacent areas that might find it strategic to acquire a good-sized user base (tens of thousands of active users as opposed to whatever the dumb Javascript counter of accounts says, but still). A big company could buy out MB and SC (possibly at a discount to the current SP), give holders a nice outcome at a fictional higher price that's higher than the true price, and clean up the mess of FLN's infrastructure and management.

(side note: one of my pet theories about FLN's slow growth is that there was a lot of dodgy stuff going on with FLN's customers, and they've been slowly cleaning house, getting rid of the cash transfer and 'microlaundry' uses of FLN - this would be enormously important if a BigCo looked at buying FLN... impossible to imagine MSFT/LinkedIn thinking having lots of scary-looking transactions from people clearly just moving money is something that they can tolerate; the downside would be enormous)

MB could keep StartCon and semi-retire to be the Grand Old Man of Australian Startups, run an accelerator, and post even more times per day to Twitter. Or have another crack at a new startup while he's still only middle-aged. He's got good connections into STEM education and could have a steady supply of bright, hardworking employees, and whatever people say about his personality and management style, he does know the whole startup game very well.

It's win/win/win, as they say,