Twitter in £62m raiser

The "Twitterverse" was sent into a frenzy today by reports that Twitter is close to announcing a new round of financing worth $100 million (£62 million), valuing the social-networking site at $1 billion.

The cash is expected to come from private-equity firm Insight Venture Partners and giant fund manager T. Rowe Price as well as current investors including Spark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners.

It is almost double the amount Twitter has raked in during previous fundraising rounds, despite the three-year-old website having failed to source any major sources of revenue.

Twitter is looking at unrolling premium services for business, and co-founder Biz Stone said in July that the company would reveal its money-making plans this year, but it has not yet done so. The site's last round of fundraising in February valued it at $250 million.

But investors have flocked after a spike in the number of users over the past 12 months. More than 54 million visitors Tweet on the site, up from 4.3 million a year ago. Facebook, its closest competitor in the social-networking world, has 300 million users.