San Francisco - Internet messaging sensation Twitter is to close a new funding round of 100 million dollars from investors who value the company as high as 1 billion dollars, the New York Times reported Thursday. The privately held company, which is yet to register a profit, intends to use the funds to beef up its system as it tries to grow fast to compete with Facebook.
Twitter, which allows users to blog short messages from their cellphones, currently has about 50 million users and hopes to match Facebook's 300 million users worldwide.
Both company's eventually hope to reach the one-billion user mark.
The investor group channeling funds into the micro-blogging company included mutual fund giant T Rowe Price and several venture capital firms.
