SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter Inc. doesn’t seem to be in
any hurry to offer its shares to the public. Instead it has raised
another round of funding from some very deep-pocketed and plugged-in
private investors.
The San Francisco company acknowledged a
“significant” round of funding from pre-existing investors and new
investor Digital Sky Technologies, the investment engine run by Russian
billionaire Yuri Milner. Milner has significant stakes in social
networking’s hottest companies, including Facebook Inc.
People familiar with the funding — who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because the terms were confidential — peg the
amount at $800 million, which would make Twitter worth $8 billion. In
December, Twitter raised $200 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield
& Byers and other firms in a deal that valued the company at $3.7
billion.
The investment, which shows how hot the demand is for
a stake in the top social networking companies, had been speculated for
months. It has become a winning strategy for Milner to help more mature
companies raise money to cash out employees and buy time before an
initial public offering, when Twitter will have to prove it has a
powerful business model. Twitter is on track to generate $150 million in
advertising revenue this year, according to research firm EMarketer.
In a blog post, Twitter said: “We will use these
resources to aggressively innovate, hire more great people and invest in
international expansion.”
In a statement released by Twitter, Milner said:
“Twitter’s astonishing growth is a testament to how important it is
becoming to more people every day, and why we couldn’t pass up the
chance to be a bigger part of its future.”
Twitter also tweeted that it has opened a New York office.
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