May 12, 2008 : Facebook Gets $100M Loan for Servers


📅 - Facebook (facebook.com), the fast-growing social networking phenomenon reportedly raised an additional $100 million in funding this week that will be used to buy additional hardware to support the service's growth.


The company has already said the entirety of the new money will be used to acquire servers to help accommodate the swiftly increasing numbers of new users and popular plug-in applications that have made the site one of the big success stories of the social networking world.

The new funding is in addition to $360 million already raised by the company in the last seven months.

Recent reports put Facebook's user numbers at over 35 million in the US. Estimates have put the company's current data center capacity at roughly 10,000 servers. The new money will give it the means to add approximately 50,000 more servers, leaving plenty of room for expansion.

Facebook reportedly secured the loan without giving up equity in the company. The loan was provided through a venture deal with TriplePoint Capital, a lending company based out of California. This is reportedly TriplePoint's largest deal to date.

According to reports, Facebook has not disclosed which vendor or vendors it intends to tap for new servers, but the company has been a major customer of Rackable Systems in the past. That company reported in recent statements that 17 percent of its first quarter revenue, $11.5 million, came from Facebook.

Reads: 3044 | Category: General | Source: TheWHIR : Web Host Industry Reviews
URL source: http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/051208_Facebook_Gets_100M_Loan_for_Servers.cfm
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