Twitter is privately raising “hundreds of millions of dollars” in a new round of financing that values the company “as high as” $7 billion, reports the Wall Street Journal.
This latest valuation comes after a January round of financing that valued the company at $3.7 billion, the Journal reports.
The development follows the recent departure of Biz Stone, one of Twitter’s several co-founders and most recently its product evangelist.
He left the company to join one of Twitter’s other co-founders and former chief executive Evan Williams, and friend and former colleague Jason Goldman. The trio are restarting Obvious, a company that could be an incubator for start-ups.
Twitter’s current CEO is Dick Costelo. It is also being led by Jack Dorsey, another co-founder and now its product chief.
The Journal article notes that Twitter doesn’t have immediate plans to cash in on the public market just yet. It’s focusing instead on building a viable ad business:
The company hopes to create an ad system that will eventually generate billions of dollars in annual revenue. So far it has been enthusiastically received by some small and large advertisers, and Twitter is currently on track to generate about $150 million in ad revenue this year, according to research firm eMarketer.
Separately, Twitter announced Tuesday that it has acquired the social media analytics firm BackType.
