Twitter confirms investment from Facebook, Zynga investor DST

Twitter today confirmed that it is raising a large funding round from Russia’s DST, the investment company that has backed Facebook, Groupon and Zynga.

“Now we have an opportunity to expand Twitter’s reach with a significant round of funding led by the venture firm DST Global, with the participation of several of our existing investors,” the company said in a blog post.

There were reports earlier this month that the company was raising a $400 million round at a valuation of nearly $8 billion. A regulatory filing discovered by venture capital information firm VCExperts with the Delaware Secretary of State’s Division of Corporations indicated it could be a two-part round that would bring the company up to $800 million.

Twitter has more than 300 million registered users who publish more than 200 million tweets a day. Valued at $3.7 billion after its most recent round of funding in December, Twitter makes $200 million each year, according to analysts cited in the report.

While Twitter is incredibly popular, it has had some trouble finding effective ways to monetize the service. The company introduced “promoted tweets” last year in an effort to make money and it also runs promoted trending topics.