Google reportedly tried to outbid Facebook for Snapchat with $4 billion offer

Just as the world was getting used to the news that Facebook attempted to buy Snapchat for $3 billion, a new report suggests that Google trumped that offer with a $4 billion bid of its own. GigaOm founder Om Malik first tweeted the rumor before Valleywag filled in the rest of the story.

Valleywag explains that, at around the same time as the Facebook offer, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel looked to Google for “strategic investment” in his instant messaging photo app. Ultimately, Spiegel decided to pass on both Google and Facebook’s offers, believing that, at the rate its traffic is growing, Snapchat would soon be valued even higher.

Had it been successful in its efforts, Google was reportedly planning to keep Snapchat as a standalone app, much like Facebook has done with Instagram. Valleywag notes that all of its information comes from a single source, and neither Snapchat nor Google has confirmed the timeline above. The news comes at a good time for Snapchat; it’s apparently just about to attempt to raise millions of dollars in a new funding round, valuing the company somewhere between the two rumored offers of $3 billion and $4 billion.