Twitter IPO pricing: At $28/share, Twitter would raise $2.3B on a valuation of $16B

What’s the value of a tweet? Not nearly as much as 500 million of them a day.

Tomorrow Twitter hits the NYSE, and the pricing looks to be significantly up from the $17 to $20 range the company initially projected. That means the amount the company will raise could jump from $1.4 billion, at the original low end, to $2.3 billion, at the new high end, or $28 per share. And, of course, raise the company’s total valuation from $11 billion to $16 billion.

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Interestingly, that’s close to the range and valuation Twitter was originally considering.

The social network has chosen Barclay’s Capital as the market maker for the initial public offering, which means that Barclays will act to stabilize the stock, buying up shares if there’s a downturn.

That’s a potential risk, because Twitter is pricing itself higher. And its precisely the kind of problem that Facebook experienced, and Twitter wants to avoid. But there’s some indication that the stock could still pop to the mid-$40s, according to at least one source I emailed.

If that happens, cofounder Evan Williams will see his 56.9 million shares be worth north of $2 billion, while Jack Dorsey’s 23.4 million shares would be worth about $1 billion.

This pricing is still aggressive however.

When Facebook went public, it was not only profitable, it had 900 million users. And, it was still growing at a significant rate, hitting one billion regular users shortly thereafter. Twitter, on the other hand, has lost money every year of its existence, and has seen its user growth rate stall, especially in the U.S.

The company currently has 230 million monthly active users and 100 million daily active users, who tweet about 500 million times a day.