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Social scrapbooking site Pinterest valued at $3.8bn | Social scrapbooking site Pinterest valued at $3.8bn |
(about 9 hours later) | |
Social networking site Pinterest has seen its value jump by more than 50% to $3.8bn (£2.3bn) following its latest round of fundraising. | Social networking site Pinterest has seen its value jump by more than 50% to $3.8bn (£2.3bn) following its latest round of fundraising. |
The three-year old company, which has yet to generate revenue, said it had raised $225m from a group of investors led by Fidelity Investments. | |
Earlier this year it had raised $200m, valuing the firm at $2.5bn. | Earlier this year it had raised $200m, valuing the firm at $2.5bn. |
Pinterest said it plans to use the new funds to further expand internationally and develop its mobile services. | Pinterest said it plans to use the new funds to further expand internationally and develop its mobile services. |
"We hope to be a service that everyone uses to inspire their future, whether that's dinner tomorrow night, a vacation next summer, or a dream house someday," Pinterest co-founder and chief executive Ben Silbermann said in a statement. | "We hope to be a service that everyone uses to inspire their future, whether that's dinner tomorrow night, a vacation next summer, or a dream house someday," Pinterest co-founder and chief executive Ben Silbermann said in a statement. |
"This new investment enables us to pursue that goal even more aggressively." | "This new investment enables us to pursue that goal even more aggressively." |
The San Francisco-based company is also looking at ways of monetising its service. Earlier this month the firm started testing the use of 'promoted pins' as a possible form of advertising. | |
Tech start-ups | |
Pinterest has secured its latest round of financing amid renewed demand for fast-growing interest companies. | |
Micro-blogging site Twitter, for example, is looking to raise about $1bn through a share offering later this year. | |
There is strong interest in Twitter, which has seen its value skyrocket in recent years. | |
In the prospectus for its initial public offering, Twitter valued itself at nearly $13bn as of August. In July 2007, the firm was worth about $200,000. | |
Social networking giant Facebook listed in New York last year after raising a record $16bn. | |
The new valuation for Pinterest, which has 46m users, now makes it worth more than some publicly traded tech companies, such as mobile game developer Zynga. | |
But for many analysts, the big question is how the free service can make money based on a business that lets people share images of objects or projects by "pinning" pictures online. |