Yeah, survey monkey does $40M/year in revenue. The company took $100M in debt financing to pay the founders, and put cash in the company coffers. The $100 million was more of a tax-arbitrage deal than anything else. (In the US equity payments are double taxed, but debt service isn't)

I can believe there's the money, what I can't believe is why SurveyMonkey appears to be so entrenched, it's not a product that's hard to replicate (at least that's how it appears from the outside).

It also has a URL that really looks scammy. Whenever I see a mailing list mailout from Big Corporation X, and it has a SurveyMonkey URL, I think "this is pretty much the opposite of the professional image that they're trying to pitch." I don't know how they do it. I guess that's why I'm not making the mega-bucks ;)

However, it's a great exit for Wufoo, and congratulations to all of them.

SurveyMonkey organically (no funding) grew to like, 60 people - then went out and raised $100M+ in funding, I guess its a huge market

They recently got $100 million in financing, and 'revenues rumored to be above $50 million a year'.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/03/surveymonkey-100-million-de...

There is a ton of money in online surveys. Advertisers spend a lot on surveys.

I'm guessing a significant portion of the $35m is in stock.