Facebook

Facebook renamed its parent company Meta Platforms on October 28, 2021. The company operates the Facebook social network along with Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and its virtual and augmented reality hardware and software. Mark Zuckerberg founded the company in Cambridge, Massachusetts on February 4, 2004, with Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes. Its headquarters is in Menlo Park, California.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel made the first outside investment in the summer of 2004: $500,001 for 10.2% of the company. In April 2005 Accel Partners invested $12.7 million at a $98 million valuation, and Accel partner James W. Breyer joined the board. In April 2006 the company raised $27.5 million from investors including Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners at about a $500 million valuation. On October 24, 2007 Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake for $240 million, implying a valuation of about $15 billion, and Li Ka-shing invested $60 million the next month. In May 2009 Digital Sky Technologies (later Mail.ru Group, alongside DST Global) bought $200 million of Series E preferred stock at a $10 billion valuation. The IPO filing also names Elevation Partners, Tiger Global and Goldman Sachs among holders.

Facebook priced its Nasdaq IPO at $38 per share on May 18, 2012. It raised $16 billion at a $104 billion valuation, one of the largest technology IPOs. The S-1 reported 2011 revenue of $3.71 billion, up 88%, and 845 million monthly active users as of December 31, 2011. Monthly users passed one billion in October 2012. Before the offering, entities affiliated with Accel held 11.4% of Class B shares, and Zuckerberg controlled 57% of the voting power. Meta reported 2025 revenue of $201 billion. Its Class A shares trade on Nasdaq under the ticker META.

For venture investors, Facebook is a reference case for early-stage returns. Thiel's angel check and Accel's 2005 Series A, priced at $98 million, came about eight years before an IPO valued at more than 1,000 times Accel's entry valuation. Later investors entered at very different prices. Microsoft paid an implied $15 billion in 2007 and DST paid $10 billion in 2009, showing how strategic and crossover capital priced a private company that stayed private for eight years.