Twitter valued at $8 billion: Prince Alwaleed invests $300 million

News has just reached us that Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal has just invested $300 million into Twitter. He already has stakes in Apple Inc and Citigroup Inc.

The agreement to purchase a ‘strategic stake' in Twitter has followed after ‘several months of negotiations' according to a statement issued today.

Twitter has been very successful in recent years, gaining over 100 million users since it launched. They are going to be enhancing their service to make it more appealing to a wider audience. The investment is announced shortly after Facebook are said to be considering raising around $10 billion from an initial public offering.

The move for Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal into the social networking sector makes sense due to the phenomenal growth this year. Twitter said in August that they generated new funding from DST Global in the efforts to raise $800 million. The plans were to use half of the money to buy back shares from employees and earlier financial backers. Twitter has been valued at $8 billion.

It hasn't all been smooth sailing for the social networking company as their ad program has been slow to reach release – this will be their main source of income over the coming years. EMarketer has said that Twitter will generate $139.5 million from ads this year.

Kitguru says: Investment will help the company grow next year.

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