Twitter has reportedly raised $400m in funding from a Russia-based investment fund, which values the microblogging company at $8bn.
Bloomberg reported, citing a source familiar with the matter, that the funding was raised from DST Global, the investment fund headed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner.
The report also said that DST Global has confirmed the deal.
Twitter hopes to raise $800m, nearly half of which would be used to buy back shares and to invest in international expansion, said the report.
Twitter said in a blog, "We have the opportunity to expand Twitter’s reach with a significant round of funding led by the venture firm DST Global, with the participation of several of our existing investors."
"We will use these resources to aggressively innovate, hire more great people and invest in international expansion," added the company.
Twitter’s valuation has more than doubled since December, when the company raised $200m in financing in a deal that valued it at $3.7bn.
In March, a fresh valuation at an auction of Twitter shares by Sharespost placed the microblogging company at $7.7bn.
Earlier, rumours of the company’s low level talks with Google and Facebook had shot up the micro-blogging site’s value to as high as $10bn.
On 28 February, a new JPMorgan Chase & Co technology fund was reported to be in talks to buy a stake in microblogging site Twitter.
Twitter was created in 2006, but it introduced advertising into its service only last year.
Though the microblogging site has over 300 million users, its revenue from advertising has lagged behind social networking sites like Facebook.
Recently, Twitter launched a new developer site, dev.twitter.com for third party applications developers. It also is reportedly working on a new tool that would allow advertisers to publish customised advertisements directly on its service.
Earlier this year, US President Barack Obama selected Twitter’s chief Dick Costolo among other Web leaders to join his National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.
