Blog of Intellectual Capital

Article from SFGate.

“In the company’s most revealing disclosure of its financial plans to date, Facebook Inc. said Friday that it has raised $1.5 billion in investments and planned to start reporting its finances publicly by April 2012.

The Palo Alto social networking powerhouse remains private, but a news release issued 15 minutes after the close of the stock markets signals that Facebook is moving closer to an initial public offering.

Facebook officials had previously remained mum on published reports that surfaced as the new year dawned about a deal that would bring a $450 million investment from New York’s Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and an additional $50 million from Digital Sky Technologies Inc. of Russia.

But the news release was Facebook’s first public statement on those reports, and it confirmed the investments were based on a company valuation of $50 billion.

Facebook also said it had the option to accept between $375 million and $1.5 billion from Goldman Sachs, which planned to raise that money by selling shares of a special Facebook fund to select clients.”