14 Year Old CEO Of RecMed Claims Buyout Offer; Wants $50 Million

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On Tuesday we brought you the remarkable story (AKA things you don’t see at a bottom) of 14-year-old CEO of RecMed, Taylor Rosenthal, who invented a vending machine for basic first aid supplies.

After an initial interview with CNN, Rosenthal was also invited to appear as a guest on Fox Business. The young CEO provided some more details about the alleged $30 million buyout offer that he received, and rejected.

RecMed CEO reveals more details on buyout offer

Rosenthal was speaking during the TechCrunch Disrupt event in New York, where he is showing off his RecMed medical vending machines. Fox Business host Stuart Varney asked the young CEO what the business was based on.

“We created the vending machine idea itself,” he said. Rosenthal once again mentioned that he was inspired by the lack of available first aid supplies at kids baseball games.

RecMed apparently received a $30 million buyout offer, which Rosenthal rejected. Varney asked him for some more details on the matter, and the CEO confirmed that “it was a major healthcare company” that made the bid.

It seems incredulous that a 14-year-old would turn down such a large sum of money for a business that hasn’t even started operations. “We are hoping to start by the fall,” said Rosenthal, when asked about his plans to put the machines into operation.

The teenager then calmly explained the reasoning behind his decision not to sell the company.

“It took a while to think about it, but it felt like the time wasn’t right,” he said. “We kind of wanted to grow and develop the company a bit more and maybe later in the run it would be worth a bit more.”

$50 million would tempt Rosenthal to sell up

It sounds as though the young CEO has every intention of growing the business, and announced that “the next step is to put our machines on the market.”

Varney couldn’t hide his surprise that Rosenthal had rejected such an offer. He pressed the youngster on whether he would have accepted $50 million, and the young entrepreneur said he would have accepted the larger sum.

The 14-year-old may still be in school but it seems that he believes his future lies in business. “Actually we have a second idea behind the first one,” he said.

The interview ended with an invitation to return to the show and tell everyone how his business was progressing. Let’s hope it works out for CEO Rosenthal and RecMed.

We are waiting for a response from RecMed for more specifics on the offer and the valuation. In the meantime, CNBC has more details.

“At the time, I felt the deal wasn’t right — I felt like I wanted to grow and develop the company from what it was, which drove me to turn it down,” he said about the $30 million offer.

Kyle Sandler, investor and founder of The Round House, the Alabama incubator Rosenthal launched from, said RecMed is in talks with a “major consumer product company in the home and health-care space” about a potential deal. Rosenthal began working out of the incubator after developing a business plan in a Young Entrepreneurs Academy class.

Sandler and Rosenthal declined to disclose whom the $30 million offer came from due to a non-disclosure agreement.

 

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