UPDATED 20:21 EDT / FEBRUARY 17 2015

NEWS

Reports: Snapchat raising new round on $16-19b valuation, wants to buy Taylor Swift’s record company

Startups going to raise raise raiseSnapchat Inc. is reported to be seeking a new round (Series E) on a $16-$19 billion valuation as another report claims it may be interested in acquiring Taylor Swift’s record company.

Bloomberg claims that the popular self-destructing photo sharing app maker is seeking $500 million from the round.

Snapchat’s last round of $485.6 million was only two months ago in December 2014 and took total funding in the Pacific Palisades based company to $611 million; the new round would take Snapchat’s funding to $1.111 billion.

The news comes as a separate report by Inc.com claims that Snapchat is interested in buying record label Big Machine Records LLC, most famous for representing Taylor Swift. The asking price is said to be $350 million; it’s not clear whether this new round would be used to acquire the record company.

It’s claimed that the acquisition of Big Machine, and Swift would add serious star power to Snapchat’s platform.

The messaging app with disappearing photos and videos (messages automatically self-destruct so to speak 1-10 seconds after being viewed) has seen serious growth since launching in September 2011 and as of August 2014 had 100 million active monthly users with 700 million snaps being sent each daily. Famously it turned down an acquisition offer of $3 billion by Facebook Inc. in November 2013.

More recently it launched its “Discover” service, a cut down app based curated news service which we described as rubbish on launch, but by other reports is said to be going fairly well.

A valuation of $16-$19 billion, if true would place Snapchat among the largest startups on the planet, behind Uber Inc. and Chinese mobile maker Xiaomi Inc.

Previous Snapchat investors, who would likely participate again in a new round, include Benchmark Capital, Kleiner Perkins, General Catalyst Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SV Angel, Institutional Venture Partners and Chinese media and tech giant Tencent Inc.

Image credit: Vevo/ Taylor Swift


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