Twitter Now Valued At $8 Billion, Sources Say

Twitter’s valuation continues to rise as new reports have the company raising $400 million in a private round of financing.

According to the New York Times DealBook, Twitter is in the process of raising $400 million.

The deal will value Twitter at $8 billion.

Two sources close to the deal told the New York Times that DST Global (a firm which tried to, but couldn’t, get in on Twitter’s last round of funding) will be leading this round, and previous investors including Kleiner Perkins will also participate.

This information comes on the heels of a report from the Wall Street Journal that Twitter was valued at about $7 billion, based on sources talking about this same round of funding.

The $8 billion valuation is about 40 times Twitter’s anticipated 2011 revenue of between $150 and $200 million from ad sales. Other tech companies are also sitting at a high revenue-to-valuation ratio, including Facebook’s 37.5X its revenue and Groupon’s 33X its revenue, according to data gathered in May.

Some are calling Twitter and other tech companies part of a tech bubble, while others believe it is an indication of how powerful and ubiquitous the social web is. Regardless, Twitter is going to have to start making some serious money, and soon, to justify it’s high valuation.

We reached out to Twitter for a comment on the original Wall Street Journal report, but they declined to comment.

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