The rumor mill runs on and on.
Twitter might be just a couple weeks away from closing a two-part financing deal totaling $800 million, according to sources close to the transaction. (via All Things Digital)
Around half of the total funds would be used to cash out current Twitter investors and employees, who can’t yet easily (or legally) benefit monetarily from their private stock in the company. Though many tech companies have started going public and despite expectations to see Facebook do so by next year, Twitter’s IPO is still a distant thought.
The other $400 million would be added directly to the company’s coffers.
Twitter in December raised $200 million in a round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. While it’s likely that some of that cash is still around, more funding couldn’t hurt. Especially when you’re dropping up to $50 million on a Twitter client developed by a third party.
This new report follows one from two weeks ago that said Twitter was in the process of raising hundreds of millions of dollars valuing the microblogging darling at $7 billion. Now, they’re saying the company’s valuation has swelled to $8 million, or more than double the $3.7 billion valuation Kleiner Perkins pegged the site at.
Twitter does not comment on speculation.
There’s no telling how much growth is still being seen by microblogging/social network hybrid Google+ as it approaches its month-old milestone, but either way it would do well for Twitter to defend itself financially against the potential competitor. Many first compared Google+ to Facebook, but then a report emerged citing Google’s +1 button as more heavily adopted than Twitter’s much older sharing plugins.
In general, no social site is safe from emerging competition, no matter how strong the network seems.
Other news in the Twitter world today says four key product managers–Kevin Cheng, Josh Elman, Anamitra Banerji and Jean-Paul Cozzatti–have been ousted from their positions, in an overhaul led by product lead Jack Dorsey, also the CEO of Square.
