It’s fairly common in so-called acquisitions of startups that the the acquirer never buys the company stock. This leaves annoying liabilities like existing contracts in the selling company which will be shut down. The buyer might purchase IP so that the company to be shut down can pay out their investors and old customers.
However that situation would usually never be described as an acquisition by the buyer. (The seller might put out an announcement that says “We’re proud to be joining FooGleZon, it’s been an amazing journey!”)
However that situation would usually never be described as an acquisition by the buyer. (The seller might put out an announcement that says “We’re proud to be joining FooGleZon, it’s been an amazing journey!”)
In Smyte’s case, Twitter PR does use the word “acquire”: https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/...
That sounds like something else than an “amazing journey” non-acquisition. But IANAL, just speculating out loud.