Yesterday, Crain‘s reported on some eye-popping Tumblr numbers from PrivCo, suggesting VCs reaped huge rewards, including a 5,000 percent return of $ 253 million for Union Square Ventures, $ 154 million for Spark Capital, and $ 77 million for Spark partner Bijan Sabet.

Almost immediately, Bijan Sabet and Fred Wilson fired back, calling the report “garbage” and refuting the specifics (without coughing up what they actually made). Dan Primack (who’s tangled with PrivCo before) calls the report “a load of Yahoo.” He says USV and Spark actually put $ 13 million each into the company ($ 350,000 of it seed funding) and got around $ 192 million each. Not too shabby, but not the jackpot PrivCo alleges, either.

Well, this morning PrivCo responded to the critics, on Twitter, with all the rancor appropriate to the medium.

For starters, the firm responded to Mr. Sabet’s sniping with a barrage of criticism about Spark’s portfolio:

https://twitter.com/PrivCo/status/337199686345699332

https://twitter.com/PrivCo/status/337202786573881344

And Fred Wilson:

https://twitter.com/PrivCo/status/337163140234084352

Then there’s this exchange with Business Insider writer Alyson Shontell:

https://twitter.com/ajs/status/337209070085865473

https://twitter.com/PrivCo/status/337210749074165760

And the grand finale:

https://twitter.com/PrivCo/status/337213504543133696

Did they hire the social media geniuses from Amy’s Baking Company to run their Twitter account?

Update: Looks like PrivCo has deleted the Tweets. But of course we screencap compulsively, so they’re below.

Meanwhile, PrivCo just tweeted that “a  VC just called us to bury the hatchet & gave us the precise figures. Despite blanket denials our calcs were very close,” and, “Thanks guys for calling & for realizing we’re giving PROPS for yr success not criticizing Tumblr. No horse in race.”

Sure, okay.

Betabeat