Twitter CEO Dick Costolo confirmed its first $400 million tranche of a $800 million Series G this morning, saying that the company has just closed “more money than I’ve ever seen before” and therefore was in no hurry to IPO.
The entire series G, which involved Yuri Milner’s DST, institutional clients, T Rowe Price’s group of funds, Chris Sacca and others, was split into two parts, the first $400 million going directly to Twitter for preferred shares and the second $400 million used to buy out employees and existing shareholders. The financing values the company at ~$8 billion and ~$16 a share.
Fortune’s Dan Primack reported earlier this morning that the second tranche of that funding is currently closing, and I’ve confirmed with multiple sources that the tender offer for Twitter employees ends tomorrow at 4 pm PST. No further documents will by accepted by the buyers after this time.
Twitter employees can currently only sell 20% of their shares before a liquidity event, and from what I am hearing many are not choosing to sell the full amount they are allowed to sell in this deal. Primack is reporting that existing investors Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures took this opportunity to sell existing shares but that later stage investors Benchmark Capital and Insight Venture Partners have thus far held on to theirs.
Funds will go out to those tendering shares on September 20th.
Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to…