SAN FRANCISCO: Flush with cash from its investment in Alibaba, Yahoo is angling to buy into hot mobile messaging startup Snapchat, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Yahoo has been in talks to take part in a funding round that would value Snapchat at $10bn, but how much it plans to invest remained cloudy. A Yahoo spokesman declined to comment.
In a shrewd move led by Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang in 2005, the California Internet firm paid a billion dollars for a 40 percent stake in Alibaba that has paid back the investment many times over. Reports surfaced earlier this year indicating that Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba had been considering investing in Snapchat.
Snapchat rocketed to popularity, especially among teens, after the initial app was released in September 2011. Created by then Stanford University students, the app allows the sending of text and photo messages that disappear seconds after being viewed.
The company had last year rejected a buyout offer from Facebook, judging the $3bn offer too low. Snapchat has also been courted by other investors and would-be buyers, including a group led by Chinese Internet giant Tencent. Talk of Yahoo being interested in Snapchat came the same day that Yahoo bought the startup behind mobile messaging application MessageMe for a price reported to be in the “double-digit millions.” AFP
