Early Stage Startups Valuation

Question for all you tech bankers/VC bros out there. Can early stage private companies be taken out by a strategic for less than their latest post-money valuation? For example say a company has a most recent post-money valuation of $550mm but was bought by a strategic for $450mm. This doesn't seem intuitive to me but I guess founders/investors might want to cash out or if they see more upside at the strategic

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