Twitter has raised an additional $200 million in venture capital, primarily from famous VC firm Kleiner Perkins, Kara Swisher reports in a big AllThingsD scoop today.
125% more than all previous rounds of investment in Twitter combined, this brings company’s total financing to $360 million. What on earth will it do with all that money? It will attempt to become the communications platform it has always wanted to be. That will probably mean acquisitions, it will probably mean a lot more sales people and advertising and it definitely means that if anyone is going to acquire Twitter, it will need to be for multiple billions of dollars. More likely the company will file to go public on the stock market.
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Along with the money, Twitter will now also add some new members to its Board of Directors: Flipboard’s Mike McCue and former DoubleClick head David Rosenblatt. As Swisher explains, “[recent addition] Currie has deep financial and IPO experience, McCue is a well-connected and innovative entrepreneur and Rosenblatt brings much needed online advertising heft.”
Minutes after Swisher posted, the Twitter company blog made a formal announcement. That post included some other numbers: Twitter says it added 100 million new users this year and grew its staff from 130 to 350 people.
It’s no co-incidence that this giant round of funding has been announced within weeks of Twitter’s having promoted business-oriented Dick Costolo to CEO, announced the commercial availability of its user data and unveiled the beginnings of a wide open advertising platform. The company is also rumored (though they deny it) to be opening an office in New York City, advertising capital of the world.
Get ready to see what Twitter looks like with a well-heeled foot on the gas.
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