Potential financial deal may raise Tango's valuation to $1.5B

Mobile messaging platform Tango may be involved in a financial transaction with an existing investor that would result in a $1.5 billion dollar valuation, according to Reuters.

Billionaire Len Blavatnik is looking to increase his claim of Tango and is looking to buy up shares from early investors and shareholders, the report says. Blavatnik led a $42 million fund for Tango in 2011, which brought the companies valuation up to $160 million.

The Reuters report is fairly vague. No agreements have been made or signed, and its still uncertain how many investors would even be willing to sell their shares. Though, one of Reuters sources says the amount of shares involved are worth tens of millions of dollars.

Venturebeat reached out to Tango, but so far has not received a response.

A secondary financing deal is not out of the question for the company. Last month, Tango offered employees an opportunity to cash out $8 million dollars worth of stock.

The company is fast on the rise. In March Tango closed a $280 million dollar round, led by Chinese Internet giant Alibaba. And registered users is growing too. In March monthly active users totally 70 million with engagement doubling since the year before.

Tango competes in the very hot arena of mobile messaging where popular applications can be highly prized. The clearest example of that is Facebook’s recent $19 billion dollar acquisition of WhatsApp. Tango has tried to differentiate its messaging platform by incorporating games.

Blavatnik owns Warner Music Group and has acted as a director of that company since 2004.