Twitter being valued for as much as $7 billion
Twitter hasn't declared an IPO yet nor has it hinted that it will be going public anytime soon. Nevertheless, the micro-blogging giant is being valued for as much as $7 billion these days.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the San Francisco-based company is "currently in discussions to raise a new round of private financing," in order to "raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a round valuing Twitter as high as $7 billion.
Note that this is all based on reports from unnamed "people familiar with the matter," nor do we know officially which investors and venture capitalists could be involved.
However, the WSJ also notes that Twitter is on track to earn just about $150 million in ad revenue this year.
Nevertheless, it's no surprise that there is buzz that Twitter should/could be going public - even if $7 billion does seem a bit high to some skeptics. There has been much hype over recently declared IPOs from Groupon and Zynga for $750 million and $1 billion respectively.
There's also speculation that Facebook will go public by the end of 2011, with valuation estimates hovering anywhere between $65 billion and $100 billion - especially if it turns out Facebook actually does have 750 million active users already. Yet, the last official statement that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made as to Facebook declaring an IPO was a simple "Not yet" at the eG8 forum in Paris in May.
We could be learning more on that front tomorrow when Facebook makes a "major announcement." But as for Twitter, we might have to wait a bit longer for that one as it seems that the micro-blogging giant is satisfied with private investments for the time being.
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