I think that the $30 billion number was never something that bankers seriously pitched to Groupon as a launch-valuation possibility. Instead, it was a number thrown out by people looking at , and was intended to reflect not the IPO price but rather the level at which Groupon shares might trade in the secondary market, if the market remained frothy. (And even today LinkedIn is worth more than $8 billion, which makes $11 billion for Groupon seem pretty reasonable in comparison.)