Facebook has received a massive new round of funding: $450 million from Goldman Sachs and $50 million from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, according to a new report.
Facebok has raised over $800 million over five rounds of funding. With this round, the social network will have raised over $1.3 billion. The New York Times says that the deal sets the social network’s valuation at a whopping $50 billion. Facebook’s worth has fluctuated between $40 and $50 billion in the secondary markets for the last few weeks. In September, Facebook was worth between $23 billion and $33 billion and in Novemberit was worth $41 billion.
As part of the deal, Goldman Sachs will help the social network raise an additional $1.5 billion. To do this, the investment bank will create a “special purpose vehicle” that will allow others to invest in Facebook indirectly. This would help the social network bypass an S.E.C. regulation that requires companies with more than 499 investors to disclose their financial results to the public.
Goldman Sachs will be a first-time investor in Facebook, while Russian venture capital firm Digital Sky Technologies had previously invested $200 million in the company Mark Zuckerberg built at a $10 billion valuation. According to the NYT report, Goldman Sachs has the option to sell $75 million of its stake to DST.
It’s unclear what Facebook will do with the money. It could cash out some of its employees and existing investors with that money or go on a hiring spree. It has so much money now that it will likely do both.
via: mashable.com
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