Snapchat has reportedly raised $175 million in funding from venture capital firm, Fidelity Investments. According to reports, the latest investment puts overall valuation of the company at $16 billion valuation.
Though Snapchat’s total valuation remains unchanged since its last funding round in March 2015, which took the company’s valuation to $16 billion. The reason behind this situation, is that this new round of funding is not a new round, but only a continuation of the investment round that took place in last year. The company had previously allocated a set of shares for selling to investors last year itself, which explains why Snapchat’s valuation has remained unaffected.
It is reported that Fidelity Investments bought Snapchat’s shares at $30.72 last month. The VC firm had purchased shares in March 2015 at a similar price.
The video messaging app’s popularity continues to rise each day, almost matching to the standards set by Facebook in terms of number of content views. According to Snapchat, close to 8 billion videos are watched on its platform every day, which is on par with Facebook’s tally. Snapchat also hit the headlines for its talked much about advertising deal with media behemoth Viacom.
As of now the company founded by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown Poster has managed to receive over a billion dollars worth of investment, half of which was raised in last year. The current round of investment, in which other VC firms are also involved is Snapchat’s Series F round of funding.
Even while holding on to its $16 billion valuation, Snapchat remains the sixth most valued venture-backed firm in the market. The company shares the spot with Chinese taxi-aggregator company Didi Kuaidi.
After being conceived by its Stanford University graduates, Snapchat has, as of today, over 2 billion photos and videos being shared on its platform each day.
Though its overall user base stands at just over a 100 million users, its popularity speaks volumes about the platform. Snapchat has been instrumental in raising investments so far, but the company is yet to show substantial profits to its investors. Snapchat’s primary source of revenue comes from brands which sponsor videos or photos in its Live Stories section.
