Google Said to Be Offering over $30 Million for Social Q&A Service Aardvark

Social questions and answers service Aardvark is raising a lot of interest from investors lately, despite not generating too much hype about the service itself. Apparently, the company is contemplating an acquisition offer from Google worth over $30 million and also has the opportunity to raise more capital at about the same valuation.

If TechCrunch's sources are reliable the company may be facing a rather tough decision, cash out now and see what Google plans for Aardvark or hold out for a bigger pay day down the road. Right now it's looking at several options. Google is one of them and the search engine is apparently offering north of $30 million, perhaps as much as $40 million, for the social Q&A service.

However, it may also be in talks with other potential buyers, though it looks like Google may be the most interested. Finally, it has received an offer from a venture capital investor as well, valuating the company close to what Google is willing to pay for it.

The company has been seeing some growth, though it hasn't released any numbers, and is set to add even more followers if the trend continues, but waiting for it to develop into a popular and widespread product is a gamble. Taking Google's money and hoping the search giant will be interested in developing the product further is less of a gamble financially, but it may prove detrimental to the service in the long run.

Aardvark is a social Q&A / search service with an unique approach to getting answers. It launched as an IM service where users would ask a question through IM, which would then be sent out to their extended social graph to users that have an interest or expertise in the topic. This approach meant that uses would get relevant answers from people they trust. It integrated Facebook Connect and later Twitter in the summer and has recently launched a website version of the service.