This week, Telegram raised approximately $210 million through bond sales from a number of investors, including its founder and CEO, Pavel Durov.
The messaging app, which has over 800 million monthly users, issued $270 million in bonds to raise capital. A company executive told TechCrunch, “Because interest rates have increased significantly since 2021, the bonds have a different issue price.”
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Telegram is still not profitable, and the new funding is intended to bring it closer to the “break-even” position, according to Durov, who claimed his app was “closer to profitability in absolute numbers” than Twitter and Snap.
Durov stated, without elaborating, that a group of “well-known funds with stellar reputations” bought the bonds. A company representative told TechCrunch that these investors are “highly sophisticated global bond funds.”
“I personally invested tens of millions of dollars in Telegram’s development by purchasing a quarter of the new Telegram bonds. This is in addition to the hundreds of millions I have spent over the past decade to keep Telegram operational, as stated by Durov.
He added that the app gains over 2.5 million users per day. Durov also stated that he possesses Bitcoin and Toncoin, a token with a tenuous connection to the messaging app.
Two years ago, Telegram raised over $1 billion in debt financing by selling 5-year pre-IPO convertible bonds. TechCrunch has contacted Telegram for further information.
