investors

After years of Facebook executives and investors saying "not yet" to an initial public offering, 2010 finally looked like the year when it could happen.

Nope. Or at least that's what two major Facebook investors, Jim Breyer of Accel Partners and Yuri Milner of Digital Sky Technologies, said during an onstage talk at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich on Tuesday.

A live-blog of rough notes from the talk reveals that both Breyer and Milner ruled out the possibility that Facebook will go public anytime soon. "I am happy to announce that there will be … Read more

LOS ANGELES--Twitter didn't rake in $100 million because it was about to run out of money, investor and board member Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital said in a panel at the 140 Conference on Tuesday morning.

There was still money left over, Sabet explained, from what the company had raised from Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners in February, which followed Twitter's Series C round in the spring of 2008. Twitter, according to Sabet, raised the money from Insight Venture Partners and T. Rowe Price last month because it wanted to grow up: hire new people, launch new … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Among the tech industry's up-and-coming, ad-supported business models appear to be out of fashion. Or at least that appears to be the trend among the companies that just graduated from the annual Boulder, Colo.-based incubator program TechStars. Representatives from some of those start-ups convened for an "Investor Day" at a Microsoft-owned auditorium here on Wednesday morning.

Founded by venture capitalists David Cohen and Brad Feld three years ago, TechStars accepts a total of 20 participants in both Boulder and Boston for a summer of development, seminars with industry veterans, and a small amount … Read more

Twitter just closed a massive funding round that reportedly has given it a billion-dollar valuation. Meanwhile, co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey is making investments of his own: he's one of the undisclosed angel investors in geolocation start-up Foursquare, quite a few sources have told CNET News.

News of the New York-based Foursquare's venture round, led by Union Square Ventures, leaked earlier this month via an SEC filing. A source with knowledge of the deal's terms said that about $200,000 of that $1.35 million in funding was taken up by the angel investors, including Dorsey, but … Read more

If Dell's stock has gone down, why does it look like the overall compensation of the company's executive team gone up this year?

That was the most contentious question raised at Dell's annual shareholder meeting, held Friday morning at the Austin Convention Center. An investor who didn't identify himself asked politely why, when gross margins, operating margins, earnings per share, and market share had declined in 2009, it looked as if executives were getting more in return.

"Shareholders who held stock for 12 months lost half their money," the man said from the Austin, … Read more

Seriously, how much is Facebook worth? It's been an enigma in tech gossip for years now, as the social-networking company grows bigger and bigger and yet remains privately held. And some of Facebook's most rapid growth has taken place in the midst of a stormy economic climate that could batter any company's balance sheet. So here's a rundown of what tech blogs, news outlets, investors, and Valley gadflies have said thus far about just how much Facebook is worth.

Are all these numbers accurate? In a word, no. Some of them were rumors (albeit decently strong … Read more

Facebook employees and investors can now sell some of their stock to Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian investment firm that infused $200 million into the social network this spring.

Part of the deal at the time of the investment would be that Digital Sky Technologies would buy back up to $100 million in common stock from shareholders whose shares have vested.

Now, Digital Sky Technologies is purchasing stock at $14.77 per share, which assumes a valuation of about $6.5 billion for Facebook, according to Brad Stone of The New York Times, who first reported the news. That's … Read more

Facebook board member Marc Andreessen, who just launched a new venture fund, said in an interview with Reuters (published Monday) that he expects the company's revenue to be in excess of $500 million in 2009, and that in five years it'll be well into the billions.

"Generally speaking, people who are selling their stock in Facebook now are making a mistake," he told Reuters regarding the fact that since an initial public offering is still a ways off, Facebook is permitting some employee stock sales to Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian firm that invested $200 million in the site in May. … Read more

Memo to Twitter: If you're really going to be making money with sponsored direct messages, as a New York Times article hints, please make sure it doesn't get annoying.

Twitter investor Todd Chaffee of Institutional Venture Partners told the Times that "e-commerce, including links to products and turnkey payment mechanisms, is a likely revenue stream for Twitter." That's not too surprising. Some companies have touted real success with Twitter-only deals: electronics manufacturer Dell, for example, says it's racked up a few million in sales. Airlines JetBlue and Southwest sometimes advertise special fares on Twitter. … Read more