• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 13, 2015

Snapchat is losing its COO, Emily White, the company confirmed on Friday.

The loss is poorly timed, as Snapchat is trying to cement its position as a top social network. “Emily is a talented executive, and we thank her for her many contributions,” a Snapchat spokeswoman said on Friday.

Re/Code first reported the move on Friday.

White has been with Snapchat since late 2013, when she defected from Instagram to join the disappearing message service.

Snapchat declined to discuss replacements for White, on Friday, and its plan for her position is not clear. Along with White, Snapchat has been trying to assemble a more experienced management team in recent years.

Last year, it poached the global director of Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developer program, Mike Randall, to serve as vice president of business and marketing partnerships. More recently, the company hired Imran Khan as its first chief strategy officer. Khan had most recently served as head of Internet banking at Credit Suisse, where he was best known for leading Alibaba’s blockbuster IPO, last year.

In an effort to scale its business, Snapchat has reportedly been engaged in a number of fundraising efforts.

The company is close to getting $200 million from Alibaba, sources told Bloomberg Businessweek, earlier this week. Separately, it’s also reportedly pursuing somewhere in the range of $500 million.

Snapchat declined to comment on any ongoing fundraising efforts, this week.

Late last year, the company quietly raised nearly $500 million from some 23 investors. To date, Snapchat has officially raised north of $160 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Benchmark, among other investors. 

From straightforward advertising to branded content, business opportunities remain highly experimental on Snapchat. The vanishing-message service only recently introduced ads to its platform, which also disappear after users view them or within 24 hours.