Groupon raises nearly US$1bn for global expansion

The financing comes from a number of venture capital firms and late-stage investors.

Among these was Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies (DST), which recently topped up its investment in Facebook, valuing the social networking site at US$50 billion.

Groupon, the Chicago based start-up that launched two years ago, works with local businesses to offer steep discounts on services and products such as beauty treatments and meals, if enough users pledge to buy them.

Last year, it was dubbed by Forbes Magazine as "the fastest-growing company ever", having expanded from the US to 35 countries. It claims to have grown its subscribers by 2,500 per cent, from two million to more than 50 million over the past year.

In December, Google was in talks to buy Groupon for US$6 billion, which would have been its largest investment to date. However, these talks fell through after Groupon rejected the bid.

DST, which also has stakes in online games company Zynga, led a US$135 million investment round in Groupon in April last year. The Russian investor is in talks to invest in Twitter, according to a report in The Sunday Times.

This article was first published on Brand Republic.