While the social networking web site Twitter has yet to file for its own public stock offering, an upcoming new financing deal for the site has now raised the company"s current value to $7 billion. The Wall Street Journal reports that Twitter is trying to raise even more money that could add hundreds of millions of dollars to the privately owned company. This news comes as web sites like LinkedIn have already launched their IPO and other sites like Zynga have filed their official papers in an effort to do the same.
The story states that Twitter is looking to raise more money to keep the operations going while it also creates its own advertising-based business to help raise its own revenues. While Twitter is supposed to have over 200 million users it has not generated much in ad money like other web sites such as Facebook, Zynga and others. The story claims that Twitter is expected to bring in $150 million in ad revenues in 2011. Twitter uses a "promoted tweet" as its version of an online add but the company is also supposedly working on another approach that is similar to the methods used by Google who knows a thing or two about making money via online ads.
The company itself is still small in terms of team members. It only has about 600 employees. According to a quote from Tony Florence, one of the partners with venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates. "Staying private while you are figuring out your model makes a lot of sense."