Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer has agreed to invest in fast-growing messaging startup Snapchat at a valuation close to $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.<\/p>\n
The venture-capital firm had committed to invest up to $20 million in Snapchat in May, the Journal cited one of the people as saying, without elaborating.<\/p>\n
At least one other strategic investor has committed to joining the latest round of funding, the Journal cited two of the people as saying.<\/p>\n
If the deal goes through, Snapchat would join a select club of tech startups with valuations of $10 billion or more, including car-ride service Uber and rooms-to-let startup AirBnB.<\/p>\n
Snapchat, a so-called ephemeral messaging service popular with teenagers, turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook Inc last year, a source close to the matter told Reuters.<\/p>\n
It now lets users send photo-messages that vanish within seconds, but is expected to soon begin offering advertising or branch out into additional services. Snapchat is similar to a new crop of popular mobile messaging apps that compete with established Internet services such as Twitter Inc’s and Facebook.<\/p>\n
Though few of them have established business models, their rapid user growth and perceptions of advertising potential have aroused intense investor interest over the past year or so.<\/p>\n
Neither Snapchat nor Kleiner were immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n
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