The Wall Street Journal-20080116-Facebook Gets Big Investment
Return to: The_Wall_Street_Journal-20080116
Facebook Gets Big Investment
The Samwer brothers of Europe have agreed to invest in social- networking site Facebook Inc., according to a spokesman for the brothers.
The size of the investment is roughly $10 million to $15 million, said a person familiar with the matter.
The personal investment by brothers Alexander, Oliver and Marc Samwer -- the founders of Alando.de, an online auction site that was sold to eBay Inc. -- follows a $240 million Facebook investment by Microsoft Corp. and a $60 million investment by Li Ka-shing, chairman of the Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.
The investments value Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook at $15 billion.
The deal with the Samwer brothers hasn't yet closed and could fall apart, said a person familiar with the matter.
The brothers have also invested through a vehicle called the European Founders Fund in LinkedIn Corp., a professional-networking site, and StudiVZ, a small Facebook rival that was acquired by Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH publishing group, according to their Web site.
Closely held Facebook expects to announce additional investment as part of its current financing round, says one of the people familiar with the matter. Mr. Li also has the option to invest an additional $60 million in Facebook. News of the Samwer investment was reported by Reuters and TechCrunch.
