http://in2s.us/1z8
http://in2s.us/1z8
Investment firm General Atlantic is buying 0.1 percent of Facebook, giving the social network a valuation of $65 billion. The company is purchasing roughly 2.5 million Facebook shares from former Facebook employees, according to CNBC.
The deal has not yet closed as it still requires approval from Facebook. Unsurprisingly, neither General Atlantic nor Facebook are willing to comment. I’m wondering if today’s rumor that a Facebook co-founder wants to sell 10 million shares is related.
Less than two months ago, Facebook announced that it had raised $1.5 billion at a valuation of approximately $50 billion, but that it had no immediate plans for the funds and would simply continue to build and expand its operations. The transaction consisted of two parts: in January 2011, Goldman Sachs completed an oversubscribed offering to its non-US clients in a fund that invested $1 billion in Facebook Class A common stock, while in December 2010, Digital Sky Technologies, The Goldman Sachs Group, and funds managed by Goldman Sachs, invested $500 million in Facebook Class A common stock at the same valuation.
Comparing this $50 billion number to the new reported $65 billion suggests that Facebook is seeing a 30 percent boost in value since January. That’s a huge increase in so little time, assuming this deal does indeed go through.
Last month, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) invested $38 million in Facebook as part of its $750 million digital growth fund. The investment was only worth 0.00073 percent of the social network, but it was still done at a slightly larger valuation of $52 billion.
Recent rumors have suggested that Facebook was hoping to sell a stake at a $60 billion valuation. Clearly, the price went up, yet again.
