Flipboard raising money at a $200M valuation?

Rumors are flying, but Flipboard is keeping mum

Flipboard, the iMag that curates your social content for your iPad reading pleasure, is reportedly raising funds for a hefty $200 million valuation. The company declined to comment, but individuals close to the matter are reportedly saying that Flipboard recently began accelerating its efforts. 

Launched in July 2010, the company has raised $10.5 million to date from such notable names as Twitter-founder Jack Dorsey, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Ashton Kutcher, Kleiner Perkins, SV Angel, and more. 

For those who haven't been following along, Flipboard essentially created the social iMag, which is now spawning dozens of similar ventures from other hopeful startups. Currently operating as a free app for the iPad (and the iPad alone, for now), the technology curates content from the user's Twitter and Facebook feeds and arranges it all in a clean, magazine-like layout, complete with a simulated page-turning feature rather than a scroll bar. The company also recently added Instagram integration and plans to launch an iPhone app later this year. 

It was a risky venture, considering the fact that at the time of launch, fewer than 4% of Americans even owned a tablet, but founder and CEO Mike McCue believes the gamble will pay off. "We got in at just the right moment in time, not too soon, not too late," McCue told me in a recent interview, anticipating that Flipboard will grow along with the iPad adoption rate.

While the company isn't seeing any revenues yet, if the proliferation of its competitors is any indication of Flipboard's horizon, the future looks promising. Earlier this month, Zite launched with the very interesting promise that it will be better than other social iMags based on its superior algorithm, which curates not just friends' links and photos but content based on the user's interests and social context. 

And then, of course, there are the myriad news organizations that are now getting into personalized content, such as the New York Times, which recently launched News.Me, and the Washington Post, which is working on Trove. 

Image source: Flipboard.com