Snapchat worth over $10 bn after $486 mn fundraising
03 Jan 2015
US technology start-up Snapchat has revealed yesterday that it has raised 485.6 million, taking the company's valuation to over $10 billion.
Snapchat, led by Evan Spiegel, its chief executive officer, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that since April, it raised $485.6 million from 23 investors. The fundraising brings Snapchat's total funding to nearly $650 million.
Snapchat has not specified the names of the investors or the valuation of the company. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm and internet giant Yahoo, are believed to be among the investors.
Los Angeles-based Snapchat is a messaging application that enables users to send annotated photos or video snaps known as ''snaps'' to friends and chronicle their day through My Story posts. Users set a time limit for how long recipients can view their snaps, usually in seconds, after which they will be hidden from the recipient's device and deleted from Snapchat's servers.
The service, launched in September 2011, had become one of the hottest mobile apps available on iOS and Android. Though Snapchat had not disclosed user numbers, according to a report from Wall Street Journal, in August the service topped 100 million monthly users, which is thought to be much higher now.
As of May 2014, users send more than 700 million disappearing snaps a day and more than 500 million stories are viewed daily, according to the company.
Earlier reports suggested Snapchat's discussions with Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba on funding, which yielded no results.
Kleiner Perkins negotiated a financial agreement with Snapchat in August 2014, at a time when the company was valued at $10 billion.
Discussions were also held between internet giant Yahoo and Snapchat in October for a $20 million funding. (See: Yahoo eyeing Snapchat after Alibaba success).
In November, Snapchat tied up with Square to launch payments service Snapcash which allows users to send money quickly to friends or other users.(See: Snapchat ties up with Square on Snapcash to launch payments service)
Earlier this month, the company appointed former Credit Suisse banker Imran Khan as chief strategy officer. It has also hired Facebook executive Mike Randall to lead its advertising business.
According to a report by Wall Street Journal, in September 2013, the start-up spurned a $3-billion acquisition offer from social network giant Facebook.
With a valuation of over $10 billion, Snapchat joins the group of high-profile start-ups, including mobile application-based taxi service Uber which is worth $40 billion and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi valued at $46 billion.
