Facebook Borrowing $100 Million for More Servers

Saturday, May 10th, 2008;
-- Janet Meiners |

Facebook is borrowing $100 million to accommodate growth on the site. The money, from venture loan firm TriplePoint, brings the amount raised to around $350 million.

The site has grown quickly and needs around 50,000 more servers to handle the load. Facebook has over 70 million active users and around 109 million monthly visitors.

According to Business Week, Google and Microsoft need a lot of server space. Google has at least a million servers and adds 500,000 per year. Microsoft is adding 200,000 servers per year.

While Facebook keeps expanding, their revenue is rumored to be at about break even. Last year they were said to bring in $150 million and plan to double that figure this year. They have more than 500 employees.

Here’s a short history of Facebook investments:

  • 2004 - $500,000 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel in an angel round.
  • 2005 - $12.8 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, $25 million from Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital Partners.
  • 2007 - Microsoft invested $246 million for 1.6% share in Facebook and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing invested $60 million.

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13 Responses to “Facebook Borrowing $100 Million for More Servers”

  1. Elections guy Says:

    This amount sounds greater than YouTube service amount.

    Elections guy’s last blog post..Polls before Pennsylvania primary: Obama most popular

  2. HYIP Info Says:

    WOW, such a great amounts :D
    HYIP Info’s last blog post..HYIP Info: What Is HYIP?

  3. Samirb Says:

    The amount of servers Google adds (500,000) really surprised me. I would like to know how many servers each data center holds.

    Samirb’s last blog post..SEO’s Need to Grow Up

  4. wii guy Says:

    That is incredible. I wonder how many YouTube need.

    John

    wii guy’s last blog post..See how fast you can type

  5. abitur Says:

    wow this is incredibel. but does facebook take this money through the ads?

  6. seo dude Says:

    This is crazy! I would have never guessed Google has that many. I was thinking around 1000 per datacenter.

    wii guy, I assume YouTube is part of that Google’s million.

  7. Eva White Says:

    How does one get a slice of the pie?

    Eva White’s last blog post..Rising Hemlines.. Rising Stocks

  8. jimmy Says:

    thats just crazy, i think of all the problems you can have with just one server never mind those huge amounts they have lol

  9. Nick Says:

    I’m assuming facebook’s 500 employees don’t manage their datacentres?

    Nick’s last blog post..Can Pro Evo Beat FIFA?

  10. Web Marketing Man Says:

    Interesting post, just one burning question remains…how many servers is facebook currently running on? They’re addindg 50,000 but knowing the baseline will help. Suppose I can go and Google it…

  11. Tiffany Says:

    That’s such a big amount! Once again, user also get the benefit.

  12. Google’s Warnung vor sozialen Netzen :: hirschgarden Says:

    [...] zu produzieren. Wobei das sicherlich sinnvoll ist, wenn man bedenkt, dass Google jedes Jahr 500.000 (fünf hundert tausend) neue Server zu seinem Serverpark hinzufügen [...]

  13. Musashi Says:

    “Google has at least a million servers and adds 500,000 per year. Microsoft is adding 200,000 servers per year.”
    No wonder google rules. With all this horsepower they can always return better search results with performance-eating algorithms.
    It is time for microsoft to wake up and get even.

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