Social Media, Funding | featured news

Pinterest, which allows users to share photographs, recipes and other media on custom "pinboards," raised $100 million in a funding round led by the Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten.

SoundCloud, a startup focusing on audio-sharing in social media, has announced a new (and reportedly sizable) round of funding. The round, which was led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, may have been as large as $50 million, TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher reports. A SoundCloud rep confirmed all the details except the amount in an email exchange with VentureBeat this afternoon.

Twitter said it received a "significant" round of funding led by Russian venture firm Digital Sky Technologies.

Biz Stone just announced on the official Twitter blog that Twitter closed a round of funding last night with Benchmark and Institutional Venture Partners. Stone says the company was not actively looking for additional funding but was impressed by both of the VCs (and presumably impressived by very favorable terms, as well).