Amid rumors of a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook and a potential $200 million funding round, turns out that ephemeral messaging sensation Snapchat has actually raised $50 million in Series C funding.
Co-founder Evan Spiegel has confirmed with TechCrunch that the $50 million was from a single investor, with no secondary offering. However, there is no word on who that investor might be, or whether or not it was a previous investor.
[Update: Forbes has learned that the investor is private equity firm Coatue Management, and Snapchat confirms.]
Spiegel did say that the money will go toward growing the business.
The SEC filing reveals nothing.
Rumors have been swirling recently that Snapchat was looking to raise $200 million, potentially from Tencent, at a valuation north of $3 or $4 billion. Spiegel has mentioned Tencent, and its chat subsidiary WeChat in particular, as an interesting company to learn from.
However, it’s now confirmed through court documents and TechCrunch’s inside sources that Tencent has already invested in Snapchat, likely during the Series B round.
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According to Crunchbase, this $50 million puts Snapchat’s total investment at no less than $123 million, and without a revenue stream in sight. And honestly, it doesn’t seem to matter right now.
Snapchat announced recently that it sees over 400 million snaps sent per day, which is more than Facebook’s daily photo uploads.
Though the company doesn’t publicly disclose numbers, it is rumored to have around 30 million monthly active users. However, TechCrunch has confirmed that Snapchat actually has more than that.
Previous investors include Light Speed Ventures, who led a small seed round, Benchmark and SV Angel, who joined Lightspeed and invested $12.5 million in Series A, as well as IVP and General Catalyst, who contributed to a massive $60 million Series B round in June. Word on the street is that the last round was actually closer to $80 million, with $20 million going toward founder liquidity.
