[Updated at 3:58 p.m. Pacific with confirmation and new details from Pinterest.]
Pinterest has raised $225 million in another massive round of funding and is now valued at $3.8 billion.
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Pinterest will use this funding to aggressively expand around the world and become even more ubiquitous.
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Pinterest has become a mainstay piece of social media. It now has 70 million users and attracts 2.5 billion page views a month. People use it for everything from organizing their plans for weddings to collaborating on educational classroom activities.
A company spokesman told VentureBeat that Pinterest has experienced 125 percent international growth in 2013. It recently launched in the U.K., France, and Italy, and it plans to launch in 10 more countries before the end of the year.
It will also support development of the core Pinterest service, especially on mobile, which has grown 50 percent since the beginning of the year and is now more than three-fourths of all usage. This financing will also help Pinterest build its technical infrastructure and go toward strategic acquisitions of talent and technology.
Pinterest isn’t only popular with individuals but also with brands and marketers. A study conducted by Piquora earlier this year found that a “pin” lasts thousands of times longer than tweets and Facebook posts.
Despite the Pinterest’s popularity, it attracted some flak for not making money and in September announced that it would be rolling out ads. Founder Ben Silbermann said at the time that he was dedicated to keeping banner advertisements off the site and instead will explore options with promoted pins.
Some of the $225 million will continue development of these money-making plans.
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Fidelity Venture Partners led this Series E round. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, and Valiant Capital Partners also participated. Pinterest closed its most recent round of $200 million in February 2013, at a $2.5 billion valuation.
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