The founder of a startup that raised $21 million says he didn't make a dime when his company was acquired

In 2007, Lane Becker co-founded an online customer service startup, Get Satisfaction. It raised nearly $21 million and was acquired by social media management company Sprinklr last week.

The price wasn't disclosed, but Becker made it known that the terms weren't good - at least not for him. On Twitter, he said Get Satisfaction was a "firesale" and that he and many of Get Satisfaction's early investors didn't get a penny from the acquisition.

According to Becker, Get Satisfaction's current CEO and CFO made out well, and so did some of the later-stage investors in the startup who "worked to remove" some of the early founders (presumably from the company and its cap table). But Becker and his early investors, including First Round Capital, SoftTech, Freestyle Capital and O'Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures, didn't.

Worse, Becker says he wasn't even made aware that a sale was in the works. He had to hire a lawyer after to learn the terms of the acquisition.

We've reached out to Becker and Sprinklr CEO Ragy Thomas for comment and will update this article when we hear back. In the mean time, here's Becker's very honest Twitter rant about what startup acquisitions can really be like for founders.