Pinterest, a US-based online scrapbooking website backed by Japan-based electronic commerce company Rakuten, has raised $200m at a company valuation of $2.5bn.
Hedge fund Valiant Capital Management, which has also backed Dropbox and Evernote, led the latest round as a new investor. The consortium also included Rakuten and venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital as well as angel investors.
Pinterest, which was formerly known as Cold Brew Labs, lists its angel investors as Jack Abraham (Milo), Michael Birch (Bebo), Scott Belsky (Behance), Shana Fisher (Highline Venture Partners), Ron Conway (SV Angel), Kevin Hartz (EventBrite), Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp), Hank Vigil, Fritz Lanman, and Brian S. Cohen.
In May, Rakuten led a $100m investment in Pinterest, according to a regulatory filing, as part of a strategic partnership with Pinterest to help it expand in Japan and Rakuten’s 17 other markets.
In 2011, Pinterest raised $27m in a round at a $200m valuation, news provider All Things Digital said, and also raised $10m at a $40m valuation earlier in that year.
Jeff Jordan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, told news provider Financial Times (FT) that Pinterest chose its last two investors based on the potential for international expansion through Rakuten, and a personal connection with Brian Miller, the chief financial officer at Valiant. Ben Silbermann, Pinterest’s chief executive, talked to only a handful of people for the round in order to avoid a drawn-out multi-month, multi-offer process, the FT added.