Social networking site Pinterest is now valued at US$2.5bn after raising some US$200m worth of venture capital in a round led by Valiant Capital Management and involving existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital.
The company previously raised US$100m in May 2012 from Japanese e-commerce player Rakuten.
According to All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher, the latest investment will be used for product development and to accelerate the company’s international expansion.
According to Pew Research, Pinterest is almost neck and neck with Twitter in terms of usage in the crucial US market. Sixty-seven per cent of Americans are on Facebook, 16pc are on Twitter and 15pc are on Pinterest.
The popular site lets users pin photos of favourite items and it has predominantly a female audience.
The site is estimated to have 50m unique monthly users worldwide.
Ben Silbermann founded Pinterest in March 2010 as a way to connect everyone in the world through the things they find interesting.
