Social bookmarking site Pinterest has landed a $100 million round of funding on a $1.5 billion valuation today. The investment was led by Japanese e-commerce platform Rakuten. By taking money from a foreign technology company, Pinterest bucks the trend of U.S. startups clamoring for money from U.S. venture capital firms. Rakuten’s funding and partnership can help Pinterest grow in both domestic and foreign markets while increasing the site’s influence in e-commerce and online shopping.
Pinterest, which has grown quickly in 2012 to be the third largest U.S. social network behind Facebook and Twitter, is a service where people can “pin” photos and interesting Web artifacts to a digital board to share with their friends and online community. It is known to be popular among women on the Web and has gained several celebrity users, including Reese Witherspoon.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.