Telegram Raises Over $1 Billion

Telegram has now announced it's pulled in over $1BN in debt financing by selling bonds. From a report: Founder Pavel Durov put out an update via his official Telegram channel after a press announcement earlier today had revealed the company had taken in $150M from Mubadala and Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners by selling 5-year pre-IPO convertible bonds. It's not clear where the additional millions in debt funding are coming from -- Durov merely writes that Telegram has sold bonds to "some of the largest and most knowledgable investors from all over the world."

billion for AOL instant messenger clone

[snoodlefelch1]

2021, billion dollars for AOL AIM clone.

Re: billion for AOL instant messenger clone

[OrangeTide]

The ICQ guys are probably hitting themselves for not delaying their product release by 25 years.

Re:

[JaredOfEuropa]

No, it's a billion for an AOL clone that comes with a large number of eyeballs. That's what gets you a billion: the eyeballs.

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[bmimatt]

A billion dollars for a hope for personal communications privacy. That is a good thing, given the data gouging and privacy disregard shown by the Zuckerfaces et al..

I will switch when..

[RealNeoMorpheus]

I will switch when is truly EonE encrypted.

Until then Signal it is.

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[RealNeoMorpheus]

Meant EtoE.

Re:

[Chameleon Man]

E2E

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[kubajz]

And then wait until Signal decides to finally encrypt the on-device message database when it's not running :(

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[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

There's always Confide if you can live with the painful UI.

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[nightflameauto]

EonE? Is this some new porn slang I wasn't aware of?

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[vux984]

I find it interesting that you write:
"I will switch when is truly EonE encrypted."

Why would you or anyone else switch to telegram if they did this? What's wrong with signal? Why wouldn't you just keep using signal??

As everyone paying attention knows, Telegram has an E2E mode; but you need to opt into using it for a given chat. Doing so means you gain more security for the chat, but also lose certain functionality and convenience features that are doable if E2E isn't turned on.

Personally I use both, because

In-Q-Tel

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

It will be interesting to see where the rest of that money came from.

I would post the wikipedia link to the subject, but I'm not allowed to because the lame ascii art filter thinks it's spam.

It is basically a VC firm that supports US intelligence agencies.

Best,

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[Escogido]

a photo with Pavel in the company of an Arab sheikh in what appears to be an Arab country has been widely circulating some time prior to bond issuance. no idea if it was genuine though :)

Wow, I wonder what it said

[Chris Mattern]

SEND MONEY DONT STOP

What's the business plan?

[The Evil Atheist]

How's it going to make back $1billion for investors if not from advertizing and selling user data (and inevitably promoting misinformation because lies pay more)?