Twitter to Use Private Financing to Buy Employee Shares

Following LinkedIn's successful IPO, commentators suggested that other Internet firms might try IPOs of their own. Twitter, however, is planning to follow a different path. The company is raising $800 million in private financing and expects to use roughly half of that amount to buy back shares from current shareholders, including its 600 employees. The investment implies a value for Twitter of $8 billion, more than double its implied value from a December 2010 investment by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.