Twitter Inc., the microblogging site that lets users post 140-character messages, is raising funding that values the startup at about $7 billion, said a person with knowledge of the matter.
Twitter’s worth has almost doubled since December, when it received a $200 million investment led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers that valued the company at $3.7 billion.
The startup was pegged at about $1 billion in 2009, a person familiar with the matter said at the time. SharesPost Inc., an exchange for shares of closely held companies, has assessed Twitter’s current worth at $6.8 billion.
Twitter is continuing to raise funds from private investors, rather than joining other social-media companies in filing for an initial public offering. LinkedIn Corp., a professional-networking site, went public in May. Since then, Groupon Inc., the biggest daily-deal site, and Zynga Inc., the top developer of Facebook games, have both filed for IPOs.
