Boston-based financial service Fidelitity Investments raised $175 million investment for Snapchat. The investment has not current changed valuation of Snapchat which received its last funding round last year.
Wall Street Journal reported that Snapchat Inc. has raised $175 million in fresh funding from Fidelity Investments. Nonetheless, a person familiar with the matter said the company is still valued at the same $16 billion valuation from one year ago.
Snapchat shares were bought at $30.72 in February, while Fidelity also paid the same price in last year's March. During third quarter last year, the mutual fund wrote down Snapchat valuation by 25%. While in the fourth quarter, Fidelity marked down the shares to $25.75, a 15% increase than previous quarter's value.
Reuters reported the flat round investment result showed investors are readjusting their expectations. Investors are wary of Snapchat's sustainability. Therefore, they devalue the company's, resulting its valuation does not increase despite the new Series F funding .
Few days earlier, Fidelity Investments, the second world-largest mutual fund and financial service released monthly valuation report for its portfolio companies. Fidelity Investments slashed down valuation of many startups but keep high expectation on its social networking companies such as Pinterest Inc. and Snapchat Inc.
At current $16 billion valuation, the company is in sixth place of the mostly highly valued venture-backed company in the world. Snapchat was tied with Didi Kuaidi, China-based ride-hailing company.
Snapchat was founded in 2011 as a video messaging application by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, along with Reggie Brown when they were still a student in Stanford University. The company received its seed funding in 2012 from Lightspeed Venture Partners at $485,000.
Currently, Snapchat is one of the most popular application used by Milennials age group. On a daily basis, there are more than 100 million users viewing 8 billion videos on the Snapchat's service platform.
Fidelity Investment is the largest financial backup for Snapchat along with other investors such as General Catalyst Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue Management, DST Global, Yahoo Inc. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
Many startup companies have experienced a slowdown starting 2016, as investors are already cautious with the future of unicorn startups. Some of which are even shutting down their business. Business Insider columnist Jillian D'Onfro wrote, "Fidelity has already written down the value of Snapchat and other private internet company holdings in recent months, and high-profile startups such as Zenefits have laid off employees. Some startups have shut down entirely."
Although the value is marked down, but Fidelity Investment still has hope with Snapchat. With its $175 million investment in Series F funding, Fidelity Investments expected Snapchat to perform even better.
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