Wow, talk about a bank note! Facebook just got a $100 million dollar loan from a venture capital group out of California so they can add additional servers to their infrastructure. Get this, they were able to pull off this deal without tying up any equity in the company. I think in some ways this lends a lot of credibility to the social networking side of the web.
All of this news also comes amidst more rumors that Microsoft is entertaining purchasing Facebook again. I have said many times that I think Facebook is the top Social Networki on the web right now in terms of it’s mechanics (software and functionality) as well as it’s quality of users even though MySpace still continues to have a lot more users.
The company has already said the entirety of the new money will be used to acquire servers to help accommodate the swiftly increasing numbers of new users and popular plug-in applications that have made the site one of the big success stories of the social networking world.
The new funding is in addition to $360 million already raised by the company in the last seven months.
Recent reports put Facebook’s user numbers at over 35 million in the US. Estimates have put the company’s current data center capacity at roughly 10,000 servers. The new money will give it the means to add approximately 50,000 more servers, leaving plenty of room for expansion.
Facebook reportedly secured the loan without giving up equity in the company. The loan was provided through a venture deal with TriplePoint Capital, a lending company based out of California. This is reportedly TriplePoint’s largest deal to date.
According to reports, Facebook has not disclosed which vendor or vendors it intends to tap for new servers, but the company has been a major customer of Rackable Systems in the past. That company reported in recent statements that 17 percent of its first quarter revenue, $11.5 million, came from Facebook.
Web Host Industry News | Facebook Gets $100M Loan for Servers
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