After weeks of speculation, Twitter has just published a blog post confirming that it has indeed raised a “significant round of funding led by the venture firm DST Global, with the participation of several of our existing investors.”
Several reports over the last month preceded today’s official announcement. In early July the WSJ reported that Twitter was looking to raise a new round at a $7 billion valuation. A day later, The New York Times reported that the company was in the process of closing a $400 million funding round valuing the company at $8 billion, that was to be led by DST with participation from existing investor Kleiner Perkins.
A report on July 20th from AllThings D added that the round would actually total $800 million, half of which would be distributed to employees and investors. We’ve independently heard from another source that this is indeed the case.
This has become something of a DST speciality — the firm has taken major stakes in Facebook, Zynga, and Groupon, allowing employees to cash out and reducing internal pressure for each company to IPO.
Here’s a quote from DST chief Yuri Milner:
Twitter is one of the few companies that has truly changed the world,” said Yuri Milner, Founder of DST Global. “Twitter’s astonishing growth is a testament to how important it is becoming to more people every day, and why we couldn’t pass up the chance to be a bigger part of its future.”
Twitter has also just announced that it’s opened an office in NYC.
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