Yahoo ‘set to invest millions’ in Snapchat
Yahoo is close to investing millions of dollars in mobile messaging service Snapchat, which may value the start-up at about $10bn (£6.2bn), reports say.
Snapchat allows users to send images and videos that “disappear” seconds after being viewed.
The company is said to have rejected a $3bn takeover offer from Facebook and other tech behemoths, including China’s Alibaba and Tencent groups in recent years.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo may invest about $20m in Snapchat’s next funding round after cashing in from its stake in e-commerce giant Alibaba.
Yahoo has been on an acquisition spree under chief executive Marissa Mayer, who has been looking to move it away from its reliance on search and make it more of a content provider.
Since joining in 2012, Ms Mayer has overseen more than two dozen deals aimed at turning the company around.
However, she has recently come under pressure from activist investor Starboard Value. The firm has been calling on Yahoo to halt its spending and consider combining with online rival AOL
Snapchat was created by a group of students at Stanford University in 2011 and quickly became popular among teens.
Snapchat, which has little to no revenue, reportedly rejected Facebook’s $3bn offer last year for being too low.
However, a tech boom in Silicon Valley has seen several privately owned start-ups receive eleven-digit valuations, including house-sharing company Airbnb and private car-booking application Uber.
Source: BBC- Yahoo ‘set to invest millions’ in Snapchat
