Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, announced on his channel on March 18 that the company has secured $330 million worth of investment through bonds to ensure the smooth functioning of the popular messaging platform.
Durov said on his channel,
This bond offering was oversubscribed, and we were delighted to have global funds of the highest caliber with impeccable reputations as participants. The terms of the bonds (when adjusted for the Federal Reserve rate) were the most favorable for Telegram in the history of our company.
Although Durov did not exactly reveal the names of investors and the investing organizations, he hinted that global financial institutes value the growth of the company. He said,
I am proud that every time we issue bonds we get better at this process. The increased demand for our bonds shows that global financial institutions value Telegram’s growth in audience and monetization.
Further, the Telegram CEO also said that these investments will “solidify their position as an independent platform that is able to challenge the ‘Goliaths’ of the industry.”
Notably, Durov also spoke up in an interview last week with the Financial Times. He announced that Telegram aims to become more profitable next year, if not this year. Talking about making Telegram public, he said,
The main reason why we started to monetize is because we wanted to remain independent. Generally speaking, we see value in [an IPO] as a means to democratize access to Telegram’s value.
Durov was referred to as the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia in 2007 after he co-founded VKontakte, a popular social media platform in Russia. Six years later, in 2013, he founded Telegram with his brother Nikolai Durov. Pavel Durov said that he had to leave Russia after he refused to share the personal information of some Ukrainian VKontakte users with the security forces of Russia.
