$150M Raised Funding Values Pinterest at $12.3B

Pinterest raised $150 million new round funding from a group of existing investors, who include Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Andreesen Horowitz and SV Angel, and Wall Street investors Goldman Sachs and Wellington Management , valuing the company at $12.3 billion, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The company has based the round on its share price from two years ago, an April 2015 series G, where the company was valued by investors at $11 billion. It has filed securities documents associated with financing, which were analyzed by private stock market firms.

In addition, the company decided to raise the latest funding at a higher valuation than its prior round because the number of shares in the company has been increasing over time, in large part due to the issuance of stock to employees as compensation.

In February, the Hartford Financial Services Group, a mutual fund and an investor in Pinterest, valued the company at $32.31 per share, a 10%, markdown from the Series G investment, according to Pitchbook. The company has raised nearly $1.5 billion to date from investors such as Rakuten, Andreesan Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and SV Angel.

Pinterest said that it plans to use the funding to help build its new visual search technology like its Lens camera search, which let users take pictures on their phone and search for familiar items or images on Pinterest. The money will also be used to help fund global expansion efforts.

The company, which has been founded since 2010, has been overshadowed by its faster-growing competitors. In the time since its last fundraising, Snap went public, Facebook-owned Instagram reached 700 million users, and Google built competitive image-based shopping technology.

Choosing to raise more money now could delay a potential initial public offering as its business model matures. The company produces revenue  by selling ads that look like posts on its site.

The company, which calls itself a digital catalog of ideas, has 175 million users which use the site to collect and post images related to recipes, clothing, furniture, travel, do-it-yourself guides, lifestyle inspiration and other areas. Pinterest’s buyable pins make it easier for users to purchase items on the site.

“In the last year, we have nearly tripled users in Germany and Brazil and more than doubled in France and Japan,” a spokesperson said.

Pinterest said its growth potential lies on improving its product to match people with images that mirror their interests and can inspire them.

Pinterest reportedly aiming to exceed $500 million revenue this year, up 67% from $300 million in 2016. The company has recently started rolling out its first major ad campaign in the U.S to educate people on how to use its services.

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