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Snapchat confirmed a $50 million Series C on December 11, 2013, with Coatue Management as the reported investor. The company did not announce a valuation. A filing reported days earlier pointed to an authorization of up to about $54.5 million in Series C preferred shares and implied a valuation near $2 billion—but that was not proof Snapchat sold the full authorized amount or that its final valuation was exactly $2 billion.
The distinction matters: the confirmed financing was $50 million. The larger figure and valuation were estimates drawn from the share filing, while reports of Facebook acquisition interest were separate background, not terms of the investment.
Snapchat Series C at a glance
| Confirmation date | December 11, 2013 |
|---|---|
| Confirmed amount | $50 million |
| Reported investor | Coatue Management |
| Valuation | Not officially disclosed; a prior share-filing analysis implied roughly $2 billion |
| Stated use | To grow the business |
“Snapchat Series C” refers to a historical venture-financing round, not an app feature or content series. Snapchat was still a private startup at the time; the company later became Snap Inc.
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On December 11, Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel confirmed that the company had raised $50 million. Contemporary coverage identified Coatue Management as the investor and described the deal as a single-investor financing. TechCrunch’s report on the confirmation and coverage by the Los Angeles Times reported the round. Some follow-up stories appeared December 12.
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Snapchat said the money would help it grow. It did not publish a line-item plan for the proceeds, so hiring, product and engineering work, and infrastructure expansion are reasonable examples of what growth capital can support—not disclosed allocations for this round.
Why do reports mention $54.5 million?
A December 5 report interpreted a securities filing as indicating that Snapchat had authorized a sale of up to approximately $54.5 million in Series C Preferred shares. The same analysis inferred a valuation of around $2 billion. The filing-based report preceded the company’s confirmation of a $50 million raise.
Those figures describe different things. The $50 million was the amount Snapchat confirmed raising. The roughly $54.5 million was a reported maximum authorization, not evidence that the full amount was subscribed or sold. The available reporting does not establish precisely why the figures differ.
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Likewise, the roughly $2 billion figure should be treated as an implied valuation from analysis of the filing—not as a valuation Snapchat officially announced. The reporting does not establish a definitive post-money valuation or the complete financing terms.
Where Series C sat in Snapchat’s early funding
The Series C followed two large 2013 financings. The reported headline amounts do not always add up cleanly because coverage of Series B distinguished company financing from possible sales of existing shares.
| Round | Reported financing | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Series A, February 2013 | $13.5 million | Led by Benchmark, according to contemporary reporting. |
| Series B, June 2013 | $60 million in company financing | Led by Institutional Venture Partners. Some coverage cited $80 million when a possible $20 million secondary component was included; see Forbes and TechCrunch. |
| Series C, December 2013 | $50 million | Coatue Management was the reported investor. |
Contemporary accounts put Snapchat’s cumulative venture funding above $120 million, with some citing approximately $123 million. Totals vary according to which earlier amounts and possible secondary transactions are counted. Secondary sales transfer shares between investors and sellers; they are not the same as new capital invested in the company.
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The business context—and what it does not prove
Snapchat was scaling as a private company in late 2013. It had recently brought in Emily White, formerly associated with Instagram, as chief operating officer, according to the Los Angeles Times. The company was also the subject of reports that Facebook had made a multibillion-dollar acquisition proposal that Snapchat declined. Those reports help explain the attention around Snapchat, but the proposal was not a completed transaction and was not a disclosed term or cause of the Series C.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsThe round’s significance was that Snapchat attracted substantial private capital during a rapid-growth phase, before its later, much larger financings. That is a useful interpretation of the company’s trajectory, not a disclosed statement of Coatue’s investment rationale.
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What came after the Series C?
In 2014, reports described a later Snapchat financing as a Series D at a valuation of about $10 billion. In December of that year, a filing was reported to show approximately $485 million raised from 23 investors, though the precise round structure and investor leadership were not fully clear in the cited coverage. These were separate events and should not be used to describe the Series C’s valuation or terms. See TechCrunch’s August 2014 report and its December 2014 filing coverage.
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