Twitter Raises $35 Million
Twitter closed a third round of funding, raises $35 million. Active users: +900% in a year (+API); http://tr.im/g50f
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Gerrit Eicker
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eicker. Wir sprechen Online. Folgen Sie uns zu relevanten Nachrichten rund ums Web. [RSS, Kontakt]
We speak Online. Follow us to relevant news focusing the Web. [RSS, Contact]
Gerrit Eicker 20:56 on 13. February 2009 Permalink |
Twitter: “Twitter is growing at a phenomenal rate. Active users have increased 900% in a year and even though our web traffic is amazing, we see twice that traffic to the APIs. Interacting with Twitter over SMS is also getting more popular every day. Our relatively small team of 29 employees has accomplished quite a bit lately but it’s obvious that we have the world ahead of us. … Twitter is making a real impact around the world as people, companies, and organizations everywhere discover a powerful new way to communicate and find out what’s happening – right now.”
TC: “Update: We just got off the phone with IVP partner Todd Chaffee who says this round was actually in excess of $35 million. Apparently, $35 million is just the total of what Benchmark and IVP put in ($21 million and $14 million respectively), while the additional amount put in by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital is still unknown.”
Mashable: “In any event, while the business model remains a mystery, it’s clear Twitter is in it for the long-haul, and despite onlookers constantly questioning how they’ll make money, the company still has plenty of time to figure it out, on their own schedule.”
RWW: “One interesting (though not unexpected) statistic in the funding announcement is that Twitter now gets almost twice as much traffic from its API than from the web. That number will surely drive how Twitter plans to monetize its service. If only a few people come to Twitter’s web site, then just putting advertising on the site will not drive enough income to Twitter to keep the service afloat in the long run.”
VW: “A strong, independent company is a longshot, considering that Twitter must pay cell-phone companies to deliver its short text updates to users’ cell phones, while not pulling in compensatory revenues. Twitter’s best hope is a buyout – and what its investors have just done is give it a better hand to bluff with, until it suckers some larger Web company into figuring out how to turn Twitter’s 140-character-long updates into cash.”
Gerrit Eicker 08:40 on 14. February 2009 Permalink |
NYT: “The fundraising round brings in two top West Coast venture firms. The San Francisco start-up had previously raised $20 million from investors including Union Square Ventures, based in New York, and Spark Capital, based in Boston. Those firms will also participate in the latest round, as could previous angel investors including Ron Conway and Marc Andreessen, which could bring the total to $40 million, said Todd Chaffee of Institutional Venture Partners. They are still working out the final details. … ‘We’re fired up,’ Mr. Chaffee said. ‘They’ve had unbelievably explosive organic growth like I’ve never seen before, and an amazing level of interest from developers, the digerati and the media. We really need all hands on deck to figure how to shepherd that growth.‘”
Gerrit Eicker 14:15 on 15. February 2009 Permalink |
SZ: “Der Internet-Kommunikationsdienst Twitter hat sich für seine weitere Entwicklung mehr als 35 Millionen Dollar von Investoren gesichert. Twitter gab die bereits dritte Finanzierungsrunde bekannt, ohne die genaue Summe mitzuteilen. … Die Summe ist umso beeindruckender, da Risikoinvestoren angesichts der Wirtschaftskrise die Finanzierung junger Internet-Unternehmen massiv zurückgefahren haben.”
Netzwertig: “Twitter hat seine bisher umfangreichste Finanzierung erhalten, und das, ohne aktiv nach neuem Kapital gesucht zu haben. Trotz fehlendem Geschäftsmodell ist dies nachvollziehbar. Kaum ein Webdienst hat derartiges Potenzial. Und Vergleiche mit dem kurzen Second-Life-Hype sind falsch. … Twitter revolutioniert die Kommunikation und Interaktion zwischen Menschen. Erkennen kann dies nur, wer den Service selbst für längere Zeit einsetzt und sich eine nennenswerte Zahl an Folgern erarbeitet hat. An diesem Punkt tritt der Aha-Effekt ein, ab da entfaltet der Microbloggingservice seine ganze Kraft. Erst wer diesen kritischen Moment überschritten hat, kann sich ein fundiertes Urteil über Twitter erlauben.”