A number of early investors in Pinterest got an opportunity to cash in their stake in the the popular social pinboard-themed sharing site after VC firm SV Angel made a $30 million secondary sale investment, as TechCrunch reports.
The money was raised through a separate fund — SV Angel-III Growth P — which was first spotted via a regulatory filing. TechCrunch says that “most” of the $30 million will be used on shareholder liquidity, which provides an avenue for early investors (but not employees) to liquidize their holdings if they wish. Around 2 percent of the company has been bought, with the deal made at the same $1.5 billion valuation from when Rakuten lead a $100 million round last year.
The news explains why the firm VC was raising a fund. Co-founder David Lee confirmed it with TechCrunch (we’ve also since received his affirmation), saying: “We at SV Angel are huge fans of the company and the product, the founders.”
In fact, Lee is such a fan that the URL he supplies in his Twitter bio is that of his Pinterest account. That’s here, in case you were wondering.
San Francisco-based SV Angel was founded by Lee and fellow angel investor Ron Conway. The firm has previously invested in Pinterest, and its portfolio also includes deals in Twitter, Zynga, Path, Airbnb and more.
Existing Pinterest backers Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital were part of the Rakuten led round that closed in May 2012, which gave it a $1 billion plus valuation.
The site first ranked in comScore’s top 50 US website ranking list in October 2012. The analytics firm pegged its monthly traffic from the US at more than 25 million visitors in October, rising to 28 million in December.
Headline image via Flickr
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