Micro-blogging service Twitter gets $35 million investor funding

Fast-growing micro-blogging service Twitter has reportedly raised an additional $35 million in funding and said Friday that it is ready to "begin building revenue-generating products." At present, Twitter claims to have more than six million users.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, in a post on the company blog, said a new round of funding came from venture capitalists International Venture Partners and Benchmark Stone said Benchmark's Peter Fenton will join the board of directors of the San Francisco-based service that lets users share what they are doing at any given moment in brief text messages on computers or mobile telephones.

"We weren't actively seeking more funding," Stone said. "Nevertheless, our strong growth attracted interest and we decided to accept a unique opportunity to make Twitter even stronger with a very attractive offer.

Twitter is growing at a phenomenal rate," he added. "Active users have increased 900 per cent in a year." (See: Twitter overtakes Digg as traffic grows 974 per cent in a year)

Twitter has more than 55 million daily users who post short updates on anything from their latest date to their views on Congressional hearings. The service has emerged as a valuable source of information and news, which users can access from mobile devices or personal computers, said Todd Chaffee, general partner at Institutional Investors.

The company, founded in 2006 by CEO Evan Williams with partners Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey, rejected an offer to sell itself to Facebook Inc last year, Todd Chaffee, general partner at Institutional Investors, said. The investors plan to make it an independent media company, he said. Benchmark invested $21 million in Twitter, while institutional investors contributed $14 million, he said. (See: Facebook's take-over talks with Twitter break down)

Twitter, which allows users to pepper one another with messages of 140 characters or less, has grown rapidly in popularity since it was launched in August 2006 but has been unable so far to generate revenue. Stone said that would change.