Mergerize Predicts Yelp Acquisition Targets

A crowd-sourced merger prediction website suggests Yelp (NYSE: YELP) might be acquired within a year for close to $8 billion.

The newly-launched website called Mergerize has so far collected 16 anonymous predictions that Yelp will be acquired. The average price prediction is $7.96 billion and dates range from October 2014 to April 2015.

Among the 16 predictions, seven see Yelp getting acquired by Yahoo. Another four suggest Google; three say Facebook. Apple and Alibaba get one vote each on the site.

Speculation about Yelp heated up recently on news of Priceline Group's $2.6 billion OpenTable acquisition.

But such talk regarding Yelp has surfaced previously; in fact, Yahoo made an actual $500 million bid in 2009 that was rebuffed.

Yelp's market capitalization is currently $5.53 billion. Shares traded recently at $77.95, up 2.8 percent.