US-based visual discovery startup Pinterest Inc. has raised over $367 million in funding, the company said in a filing with the US SEC. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the latest funding has valued Pinterest at $11 billion. The report further mentions that apart from existing investors, new unnamed ones have also joined the round.
The company is still open to raising as much as $211 million more, which would take this latest round (its Series G) to $577.9 million.
The new funding has more than doubled the valuation of the company from its last round, when it had raised $200 million at $5 billion valuation in May last year.
This round takes the total funding raised by Pinterest to date to over $1 billion.
Prior to this round, the company had raised a total of $764 million in funding from SV Angel, Bessemer Venture Partners, Fidelity, Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark Capital, and Valiant Capital Partners. In October 2013, Pinterest had raised $225 million led by Fidelity Investments at a valuation of $3.8 billion. Previously, the company had bagged $100 million from Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.
Founded in March 2010 by Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra, Pinterest helps people discover things they love and inspire them to do those things in real life. A free-to-use platform, Pinterest allows users to upload, save, sort and manage images (known as pins) through collections known as ‘pinboards’. Pinterest also acts as a personalised media platform, whereby users’ content and the content of others can be browsed on the main page. Users can then save individual pins to one of their own boards using the ‘Pin It’ button. They can personalise their experience with Pinterest by pinning items, creating boards, and interacting with other members.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
