Twitter Raises More Than $35 Million

Twitter today announced that it has raised a Series D round of VC funding, from Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners. It is unclear if existing backers like Spark Capital or Union Square Ventures also participated.

No financial information has been disclosed about the round — per Twitter’s obsession with secrecy — but TechCrunch is reporting that the round came in at $35 million. The site had reported last month that the micro-blogging service was raising at least $20 million at a valuation of approximately $250 million.

[Update: IVP partner Todd Chaffee tells us that Twitter raised the $35 million from Benchmark ($21m) and IVP ($14m). It also secured an undisclosed amount of additional capital from Spark and USV, and is still in talks to raise additional, pro rata funds from angel investors like Jeff Bezos, Mark Andreesen and Ron Conway. Original seed investor Charles River Ventures did not participate in this round, just like it didn’t participate in the Series B or C rounds]

The size of Twitter’s last round was also undisclosed, although a regulatory filing suggested that it was approximately $17 million. Once the new round is fully closed, Twitter is expected to have approximately $50 million cash on hand.

On its website, Twitter says that it was not seeking to raise more cash, but that IVP and Benchmark made “an offer we couldn’t refuse.” It also said that active users have increased 900% over the past year, and that the company currently has 29 employees. No mention of revenue, of course, since there still isn’t any.