Under the terms of the deal, Goldman invested $50 million while Digital Sky Technologies invested the remaining $50 million. The Russian firm has previously invested over a half billion dollars.
Goldman Sachs also holds the option of selling up to $75 million to Digital Sky. The deal will add to a debate on what would the company would be worth in the public market. It is estimated that Facebook could bring as much as $2 billion in revenue annually.Last November, $40 million worth of Facebook shares were auctioned on a private exchange called SecondMarket. Over the last year, the social network company has tripled its value.
In the same period of time, the popular social networking site surpassed Google as the most visited website in the year. Facebook received 8.9 percent of all web visits in the United States; Google received 7.2 percent.
Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was recently named 2010 TIME's Person of the Year for creating a new way to exchange information, connecting over half a billion people around the world and essentially changing social interactions.
Zuckerberg's fortune was estimated by Forbes at $6.9 billion. However, such amount referred to the time in which Facebook was valued at $23 billion. It is believed that his current fortune is up to $25 billion.
