Exclusive: Pinterest Closes New $27M Round With Andreessen Horowitz Valuing Start-Up at $200M
Pinterest, the infectious virtual bulletin board site, is poised to close a large round of funding — reportedly more than $25 million — with Andreessen Horowitz, which values the company at $200 million.
That’ll buy a lot of digital pushpins.
(UPDATE: Pinterest and Andreessen Horowitz confirmed the new funding, which is $27 million. The firm’s Jeff Jordan will join Pinterest’s board.)
In an interview, Jordan said that the amount of interest in Pinterest — get it? — was a big reason for the deal.
“People love the product, even though it is only in beta so far, with consumers who use it voraciously,” he said. “It’s elegantly social.”
Co-founder Ben Silbermann said the focus at Pinterest — which has only eight employees — was to “provide users with a place to discover and share in an inspirational way … we want to help people get in touch with their interests in real life.”
The start-up, which has no revenue to speak of yet and is still in invite-only mode, has become the hottest start-up of late in Silicon Valley, given its quick growth and compelling idea that has been called “experiential shopping.”
To me, it is just a really cool way of finding stuff of all kinds — from kids’ toys to inspiring quotes to travel tips — using a very savvy crowd of users via social visual bookmarking.
It’s kind of like Oprah on steroids, with users creating and sharing virtual collages on the handsome and easy-to-use site. Others can than “re-pin” them and great stuff rises in rank.
The site has previously raised $10 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, valuing the company at $40 million.