• AllThingsD, Monday, December 6, 2010 2:51 PM

Russian investment outfit DST Global is out of the running to fund Twitter, sources tell AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. "Instead, the prize is almost certainly going to Kleiner Perkins," she reports in reference to the top Silicon Valley venture firm. Meanwhile, the valuation for the new round, which sources tell Swisher is well above $150 million, will be from $3.5 billion to $4 billion.

This latest round, which could include various smaller investors, is expected to close this week. Late last year, Twitter raised funding at a $1 billion valuation to help scale its business. Russia's DST has famously made giant investments in Facebook, social gaming leader Zynga and Groupon. But DST's deep pockets apparently couldn't compete with Kleiner honcho John Doer who, according to Swisher, "has been making a big push to be the big investor in this key next round for Twitter, which also has had regular acquisition interest from both Google and Facebook."

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