Twitter Inc has something big to tweet about. The microblogging site said it has secured a "significant" investment reportedly at a record level of 800 million dollars, which would value the company at 8 billion dollars.
Twitter did not confirm the level of funding Monday but said the financing had been led by Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm that injected 400 million dollars into the social-networking company Facebook Inc two years ago at a valuation of 10 billion dollars.
Digital Sky Technologies invested 400 million dollars for a 5-per-cent stake in Twitter with a separate group of investors led by the US financial services companies T Rowe Price Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase and Co adding another 400 million dollars, the Financial Times reported, citing an unnamed source familiar with the deal.
Half of the money would be used to buy back shares from existing employees while the other half would be used to issue new shares, the newspaper said.
The investment was believed to be the largest venture finance injection in history, the San Jose Mercury News reported. The paper quoted the National Venture Capital Association as saying that no company had ever received 400 million dollars in a single financing round, much less 800 million dollars.
Twitter said it would use the money "to aggressively innovate, hire more great people and invest in international expansion."
It noted that in the past year, its employee count had grown to 600 and it had more than tripled the number of tweets transmitted each day to more than 200 million.Author: Andy Goldberg
Twitter lands record $800m finance deal
Twitter Inc has something big to tweet about. The microblogging site said it has secured a "significant" investment reportedly at a record level of 800 million dollars, which would value the company at 8 billion dollars.
Twitter did not confirm the level of funding Monday but said the financing had been led by Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm that injected 400 million dollars into the social-networking company Facebook Inc two years ago at a valuation of 10 billion dollars.
Digital Sky Technologies invested 400 million dollars for a 5-per-cent stake in Twitter with a separate group of investors led by the US financial services companies T Rowe Price Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase and Co adding another 400 million dollars, the Financial Times reported, citing an unnamed source familiar with the deal.
Half of the money would be used to buy back shares from existing employees while the other half would be used to issue new shares, the newspaper said.
The investment was believed to be the largest venture finance injection in history, the San Jose Mercury News reported. The paper quoted the National Venture Capital Association as saying that no company had ever received 400 million dollars in a single financing round, much less 800 million dollars.
Twitter said it would use the money "to aggressively innovate, hire more great people and invest in international expansion."
It noted that in the past year, its employee count had grown to 600 and it had more than tripled the number of tweets transmitted each day to more than 200 million.Author: Andy Goldberg
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