Snapchat Just Landed Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton As An Investor, Board Member
AP
New documents filed with the SEC show that Snapchat has raised another $50 million in investment, with a surprise new investor: Micheal Lynton, CEO of Sony Entertainment.Lynton is joining Snapchat's board of directors, the filing showed.
As we previously reported, new regulatory filings showed that Snapchat was about to raise a hefty chunk of money. It authorized 1,600,000 shares @ $34.0893 per share, or just over $54.5 million, and with that transaction, the company would be valued at about $2 billion, according to Justin Byers at VC Experts, a site that tracks the financial information of private companies.
This new regulatory filing says that Snapchat is selling off $50 million worth of equity.
And that's interesting because it's still far less than the $200 million they were rumored to be seeking. (Prior to this, Snapchat has raised $73 million to date, according to its CrunchBase profile._
And a $2 billion valuation, while still impressive for two-year-old company with no visible business model, is less than the rumored $3 billion or $4 billion valuation the some were speculating it had.
Snapchat reportedly turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook and a $4 billion offer from Google.
It's still too early to know if saying no to billions was a wise choice. But the addition of tech powerhouse Michael Lynton is a good sign. Lynton can certainly help advise Snapchat on capturing the advertising dollars of Sony and his previous employer, Disney.
Here's a link to the full SEC document.