Pinterest valued at $2.5 billion

Pinterest raised $200 million in its latest round of funding Wednesday afternoon, a move that values the site at $2.5 billion -- or roughly one-third of Twitter’s current valuation, according to Bloomberg.

Valiant Capital Management, which also recently boosted its holdings of Facebook, Apple and Google , led this round of funding. Pinterest investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital also participated.

Multimedia

Google I/O

The tech giant holds its annual developers’ conference in San Francisco.

• READ: Google launches music service, is reworking maps

More tech stories

Google's new conversation search quietly hits Chrome

Devindra Hardawar

The best part of the new search is its awareness of context. Once you start a search, you can continue to have a conversation with Google to refine it.

HP slogs through another tough quarter as PC sales plummet

Associated Press

Hewlett-Packard’s slump is deepening.

Twitter adds login verification as extra security measure following breaches

Associated Press

For those who sign up, Twitter will send a six-digit code using a text message each time they sign in.

The funding is the latest sign that Pinterest, once dismissed as “digital crack for women,” is becoming a serious force in the social media space. The site lets users create and follow their own “pinboards,” basically visual collections on topics like food, fitness and weddings.

Pinterest recorded 29 million unique visitors in December, according to Comscore, making it the 42nd-most visited site on the Web. Its year-over-year growth was even more impressive: 1,047%, according to Nielsen’s annual report. Twitter’s year-over-year growth, by comparison, was 13%.

But for Pinterest, as for Twitter, monetization remains a major issue. The site doesn’t sell ads. In November, Pinterest launched new tools for businesses -- a move many considered a play for greater business integration -- but the tools remain free.

“Right now, we’re focused on growing Pinterest and making it more valuable,” the company said in a September post on its on-site help forum.

The company said in a statement Wednesday that it would use its funding to hire more employees, improve infrastructure and develop more features for users.

Sign up today to receive #thecircuit, a daily roundup of the latest tech policy news from Washington and how it is shaping business, entertainment and science.