Twitter to raise $100 mln in new funding: WSJ

Twitter is close to raising up to 100 million dollars in new funding in a deal which values the hot micro-blogging service at one billion dollars, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The newspaper, citing "people familiar with the deal," said the new funding would come from as many as seven investors including mutual fund giant T. Rowe Price and private equity firm Insight Venture Partners.

The Journal said other investors include venture capital firms Spark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners, which have previously invested in Twitter.

It said the investors are valuing Twitter, which has yet to generate revenue, at about one billion dollars.

Twitter was valued at around 255 million dollars at the company?s last round of investing earlier this year, the Journal said, in which it reportedly raised some 35 million dollars.

The 100-million-dollar investment is about twice as much as Twitter was reportedly expected to raise in this latest round of fund-raising, its third and largest, the newspaper said.

Twitter, which allows users to pepper one another with messages of 140 characters or less, has grown rapidly in popularity since it was launched in August 2006 but has been unable so far to make money.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has outlined several potential ways of generating revenue and stressed that the company was not in a hurry.

"We have patient investors and time for experimenting with revenue generating ideas and products," he told AFP earlier this year.

(c) 2009 AFP