More Rumors Circulate Around Facebook’s Fundraising Efforts and Valuation

April 16th, 2009

By Justin Smith

fblogosmall Facebook has said publicly that it is in talks with potential investors all the time, but the amount of interest in the term sheets Facebook’s board is seeing these days is so high that Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures calls the company “public without being public.”

This morning, two rumors circulated that Facebook was recently offered term sheets at $2 billion (TechCrunch) and $4 billion (VentureBeat). We don’t know whether or not these rumors are accurate, but it’s quite likely that Facebook is continuing to talk with investors (and creditors).

There is still rampant skepticism about Facebook’s financials despite the company’s increasing openness (/leakiness) about its business. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told BusinessWeek in an interview last week that the company was “profitable [and] on a clear path to being cash-flow positive,” and in a letter to company employees a couple of weeks ago that was leaked to Kara Swisher (when former CFO Gideon Yu left the company), CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company expects revenue growth of 70% in 2009 from a reported $280 million in 2008:

Based on our first quarter results, we now believe we are on track to see our revenue grow by at least 70% this year. We just completed our fifth straight quarter of EBITDA profitability. And most importantly, we expect to achieve free cash flow profitability next year.

However, Facebook has not officially announced any details on its internal valuation since Microsoft’s $240 million strategic investment in 2007 that valued the company at a whopping $15 billion.

Wilson, a well-connected venture capitalist, says that $4 billion is in the “ballpark” now, and that the secondary market in Facebook’s shares is active between $4-$5 billion ($9-$11/share).

“I suspect that Facebook is seriously considering doing what Google did and biting the bullet and going public… at this point, there isn’t much cost (other than finacial costs of being public) that Facebook isn’t already paying,” he says.

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4 Responses to “More Rumors Circulate Around Facebook’s Fundraising Efforts and Valuation”

Anthony Ceresa Says:
April 17th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
That shall be a laudable effort by Face Book to develop progress in assisting private researchers and inventors to crank on new business to promote jobs and improve the quality of life of the society.
Anthony Ceresa Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
CHANGE WE CAN OR WE CANNOT.

From the era of Gorillas and Monkeys that our great philosopher and naturalist Charles Robert Darwin described as our esteemed ancestors; considering facts under the light of our most recent times where some troglodytes of the past become human beings, meanwhile some retarded cousins remained unchanged, keeping their original shapes.

Visiting any Zoo, we have the evidence to find behind the strong metallic cages many of our possible ancestors that preferred to maintain their original characteristics. Why? They were scared to become human beings?
No body can ascertain the truth, while many phylosophies boil in the air.

The question is not: , , , , but considering nowadays human progress obtained with the technological knowledge, the most appropriated consideration on the subject shall be: our present time, is it to be considered the more favourable social mental growth ? Or is possible a further positive change? .

Of course I refer more specifically to the human socialization that remained long way behind, with many Monkeys, Cain’s and Abel’s disseminated through the world.

If our life is to be reflected in any of above considerations or philosophical theories, nature can balance limiting the consequences with the extraordinary privileges common to all living beings, based on natural tolerances of the spirit of adaptability or rejection, Physically, Mentally and Biologically, but not Politically.

In other terms, what shall be the limit or the level of human biological acceptance and the limit of endurance to suffering?

Since the era where our primitives walked on four legs, and the spectacular change we had through out the time from wild animals to human beings, I am really worry that with the time in an endeavour of continuous changes, as sustained by Darwin, in the future the man could look like an insect, or a human machine with pieces to be replaced, oil or blood to be changed, screws and bolts to be tightened and live with the only feed up of pollution and chemicals, in a world that resemble every day more like an enormous garbage container and a battle camp consisting on winning the world trophy for submitting the greater number of people denying human rights.

It seams that every thing around us is governed by the convincement that nature of the planet, as well as its inhabitants are highly flexible to accepts any event with the theory of the relativity, which led to the creation of an Italian Opera that says: , but we should keep in mind if we exceed certain limits, nature can always kick back undesirable situations that could lead to catastrophic events, while the undefended man can only retract into oneself and cry for other people mistakes.
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