German millionaires gave money for European expansion of Facebook

    The fast-growing social network Facebook has acquired another strategic investor. Three German brother-financiers Alexander, Mark and Oliver Somvery, who made a fortune on Internet startups, invested their money in the project . At one time, the brothers founded the startup Alando (sold to eBay in 1999 for $ 54 million) and Jamba (sold to Verisign in 2004 for $ 273 million).

    The amount of investment is not called, but it is quite possibly measured in tens of millions of dollars. This money will be spent on the European expansion of the American portal. Previously, Somers already invested in a German Facebook clone called StudiVZ . This project was sold a year ago for? 100 million . In addition, the brothers own a share in the social network LinkedIn.

    Europeans are rapidly becoming involved in various social networking projects. For example, 11% of UK residents visit such sites weekly, while in the US this figure is only 7%. Other countries in Europe are lagging behind both the UK and the USA.

    Information that the Somever brothers acquired a part of Facebook was leaked to the press yesterday through one of the German blogs. There is no official confirmation yet, but a quick verification of the facts shows that this data is most likely reliable. Moreover, before Facebook had already done the same trick in Asia, when it raised $ 60 million from one of the Hong Kong millionaires to develop its portal in Asia.

    Based on the same logic, Facebook can already right now negotiate with Russian oligarchs to create a Russian Facebook site, all the more fertile ground has been prepared for it here.

    via Business Week

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