MUMBAI: Facebook has raised $1 billion of fresh capital from non-U.S. investors. Combined with the infusion from Goldman Sachs and Russia‘s Digital Sky Technologies in December, this takes the total of its latest round of funding to $1.5 billion.
The investment values the Palo Alto-based social networking site at $50 billion, which is more than the market values of Yahoo and ebay, but less than Amazon and Google.
Says Facebook chief financial officer David Ebersman, "Our business continues to perform well, and we are pleased to be able to bolster our cash position with this new financing.”
The Goldman funding round was originally supposed to include U.S. investors, but the investment bank barred the U.S. investors, after the plan drew regulatory scrutiny.
However, Facebook said it has as no immediate plans on just what to do with the money raised.
The social networking giant also announced that it would pass the 500-threshold of shareholders sometime in 2011, "and therefore expects to start filing public financial reports no later than 30 April 2012."
If things went on course, Facebook’s IPO could come during the summer of 2012.Facebook raises $1 billion from Goldman’s non-US clients
