The photo messaging application Snapchat has a lot of reasons to welcome 2015 with a bang. This messaging service revealed that it has raised $486 million "in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission". There were 23 investors involved in the funding round according to the filing.
Bloomberg released reports saying that the "new round of funding values Snapchat at $10 billion."
Snapchat enables its users to send "ephemeral messages and videos to friends." This was developed by Reggie Brown, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, then students from Stanford University. With the use of this application, a user can record videos, take images, add drawings and text, and send them to a "controlled list of recipients."
The sent videos and photos are called "Snaps". A time limit can be set by the user which determines how long recipients can view the Snaps. As of April last year, the range is from 1 to 10 seconds. "After which they will be hidden from the recipient's device" and removed from the servers of Snapchat.
The number of photos and videos sent by Snapchat users a day as of May 2014 reached 700 million, while the "Snapchat Stories content was being viewed 500 million times per day".
Late September 2013, the company's marketing potential was published by the Vocus Company, alongside Karmaloop, Taco Bell and "16 Handles, a New York, US frozen yogurt chain", distinguished as early application adopters. "Brands can set up profiles on the network and add users as friends, who opt into the brand's messages by accepting," according to Vocus Company.
Last October, series of reports were published that Yahoo was planning to invest in Snapchat after the Alibaba Group stock sale.
Snapchat is considered as the newest tech sweetheart to gather up sufficient funding to "draw eye-popping valuations". In the early part of December 2014, Uber closed 1.2 billion worth of funding round, while Xiaomi was able to raise $1.1 billion to "fuel a $45 billion valuation".