Snapchat raises $175 million in funding, but its valuation remains unchanged from last year

Snapchat has raised $175 million from Fidelity Investments at a $16 billion valuation, according to Wall Street Journal.

The interesting thing is, Snapchat’s last round of funding in May 2015 reportedly valued the company at $16 billion.

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The new funding is technically part of that same round, according to the WSJ, as Snapchat had set aside some additional shares at the time to sell in the future. But the fact that Snapchat wasn’t able to get a higher valuation with the sale of these shares is likely to fan worries that the once red-hot period of growth for Internet companies is coming to an end.

Fidelity has already written down the value of Snapchat and other private Internet company holdings in recent months, and high-profile startups such as Zenefits have laid off employees. Other startups have shut down entirely.

Whether these are isolated incidents or the beginnings of a broader slowdown in the Internet market is a subject of intense debate, even among those closest to the action.

Snapchat is one of the most popular apps among millennials, with more than 100 million users viewing 8 billion videos on the service every day.  It has yet to prove it can be profitable, however, though the company makes money by charging brands to sponsor videos or photos in its Live Stories section, or to create their own custom photo filters, called “Lenses.”

And earlier this week, Snapchat poached a seasoned ad exec from Facebook, so it may be looking at monetization options for the future.

Snapchat counts Alibaba, Yahoo, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers among its financial backers.

Neither Snapchat nor Fidelity was immediately available for comment.

This story originally appeared on Business Insider. Copyright 2016

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