Investment fund GSV Capital Corp has reportedly taken a small stake in Facebook at a valuation of about $70 billion. "The investment fund said on Monday that it had bought 225,000 shares in
Facebook at an average price of $29.28 each," Reuters reports. Perhaps more
notable, however, are the circumstances under which the investment was made.
Ahead of what executives are calling an inevitable IPO, "Concerns about Facebook's white-hot growth
have surfaced in recent months," writes Reuters. For one, a group of Facebook shareholders is trying to sell $1 billion of stock on the secondary market in a transaction that also would give the
company a value of about $70 billion, Reuters reported in April.
Stull, "Everyone wants to get a piece of Facebook," writes 24/7 Wall St. "Shares have been sold by the company and shares have been
sold by employees and insiders on private market exchanges." "At $70 billion, Facebook would be valued slightly below Amazon.com Inc, Cisco Systems Inc or Hewlett-Packard Co.,"
according to Reuters.
Facebook currently has about 2.4 billion outstanding shares, according to the latest data from secondary market company Sharepost. "Facebook is a one-of-a-kind
business which has created enormous network effects," Michael Moe, GSV Capital's founder and CEO said in a statement. "With over 650 million people on its platform, or
approximately 1/10 of the world's population, Facebook has established itself as a next generation social communications platform."