The mobile app, Snapchat is picking up some serious speed in its success.
According to CNET, Snapchat is closing a financing round that will net it around $100 million in new funds. It also is reported to have a valuation of nearly $500 million, just two years after its launch.
Snapchat for those who don’t have it yet, is an app that allows users to send a picture or video with text that disappears after a designated numbers of seconds to as many friends as they want. Users receive push notifications when their friends have sent them “Snaps” and frequently visit the app to communicate with other users. Unlike the pictures users send and forget, Snapchat isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
According to CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel, members upload more than 150 million images every day. With its heightened popularity, the app is looking to take this opportunity for monetization and branch out as a bigger name in social media. With interested backers, Snapchat will be getting money from hedge funds, rather than venture firms.
However they collect the money for new funds, it is expected to seriously open up marketing and networking for the app as they recruit sales teams from Stanford and USC, purchase more servers, and hire outside talent to boost the growth Snapchat, according to TechCrunch. They project that Spiegel and co-founder Bobby Murphy are projecting the valuation of Snapchat to be even higher, near $1 billion.
With a loyal user base primarily built up of teenagers and college students, Snapchat is looking to expand that audience and is strategically user marketing sources to do so. Spiegel and Murphy are selectively giving exclusives to media outlets such as The New York Times and The Colbert Report expand users to an audience that will make their app a household name. With competitors such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, Snapchat will being trying to create a larger place for itself in the realm of social media in the coming months.