Snapchat is reportedly raising $650 million at a $16 billion valuation
The company previously raised a $200 million Series E round in March from Alibaba, valuing the company at $15 billion. To date, Snapchat has raised $848 million in venture capital funding.
Earlier this week at Re/code's Code Conference in Los Angeles, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said he has plans to eventually take his company public. "We need to IPO," the 24-year-old CEO said. "We have a plan to do that."
At the Code Conference, Spiegel also said that Snapchat now has nearly 100 million daily active users. While that's still only one-tenth as many as Facebook - a company that approached Snapchat with an acquisition offer, which Spiegel rebuffed - Snapchat's users are watching about half as many videos every day as Facebook's users.
Last week news broke that Snapchat is investing in swipe-to-buy shopping app Spring. The move is somewhat atypical - private tech startups don't typically invest in other startups. But the investment would allow Snapchat to explore social commerce through its app.
Specifically, this could allow Snapchat to partner with select brands, similar to how it does with its Discover feature. But instead of watching news clips from National Geographic and ESPN, you'd be browsing products from select retailers.