AAA Saudi Prince invests $300m in Twitter

Saudi Prince invests $300m in Twitter

Alwaleed Bin Talal, a Saudi Arabian prince, has invested $300m in US-based social media company Twitter.

Kingdom Holding, the company of Prince Alwaleed, said in a statement the investment had followed several months of negotiations. It is unclear if the latest investment is an injection of fresh funds into Twitter or a secondary market investment.

The deal follows Russian venture firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST) reportedly investing $400m in Twitter in August as part of an $800m funding round.

The Russian firm will receive a 5% stake for its investment, effectively an $8bn valuation of the company, according to news provider Financial Times. Twitter confirmed on its blog the August funding round was led by DST.  DST is backed by Chinese internet firm Tencent and South African media company Naspers.

T Rowe Price, an US mutual fund and a fund run by US-based bank JP Morgan had also invested in the company, the FT said.

Half the money was expected to be used to provide an exit for current investors and Twitter employees, news provider All Things Digital said last month.

Twitter, in its blog statement confirming a DST-led investment, said: "Just a year ago, we delivered 65 million Tweets a day. Today, we generate over 200 million Tweets per day. One year ago, there were approximately 150,000 registered Twitter apps. Now, there are more than one million that connect to Twitter. And our team has grown from 250 people to more than 600 in the past 12 months."

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