Snapchat has raised a $175 million funding from Fidelity Investments at a $16 billion valuation, the same as figure in May of 2015.
Most of the time, such a number would be a positive sign, but in this case, it appears to be more of a stagnation. In other words, investors could be starting to have doubts in the company's plans for the future.
With that said, Snapchat is not alone on this, as other technology companies are also experiencing a similar case, including Foursquare and Jawbone, to name a few. However, this flat valuation doesn't seem all too bad relatively.
The news first came about when The Wall Street Journal reported it, and according to a person familiar with the matter, Fidelity's investment is still part of the funding round from last year, as the company had already given the go-signal to sell these shares during the portion of that round.
All in all, Snapchat has raised a total of more than $1.2 billion in funding from various investors, including Alibaba Group Holding, Coatue Management, DST Global, General Catalyst Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Two people who are knowledgeable of the business told WSJ that some investors accepted common shares instead of preferred stock, despite the fact that holders of preferred shares have certain rights, including voting and receiving money first when an acquisition or liquidation occurs.
Snapchat is one of the biggest apps in the social media industry, where the CEO and co-founder of the company has just recently revealed that the video messaging app garners over 8 billion views each day.
"Since launching ads just over a year ago, Snapchat has continuously worked to strengthen its advertising team and product offerings, most recently restructuring the team," a spokesperson of Snapchat says.
On a related note, the company started to push more effort into providing brands more attention on the platform. Considering how Snapchat has more than 100 million daily active users, marketers will definitely find a prosperous venture on the platform.
