Sina Weibo's users surpassed 140 million by the end of March this year.

China's 'Twitter' turns down US$500 mln investment from DST

新浪微博拒绝俄罗斯DST的5亿美元投资

Sina Weibo, China's most popular microblogging service, has turned down a US$500 million investment offer from Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST), Sina Tech reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to the report, DST gave the Chinese Twitter analogue a valuation of US$5 billion.

Sina Weibo used to be a unit under Sina.com but was registered as a separate company, Beijing MicroDream TechnoInnovation IT Technology Co., last October. The company has registered capital of US$20 million and hasn't raised funds so far.

Based on the latest statistics, Sina Weibo's userbase has exceeded 140 million.

It's widely speculated that Sina Weibo is preparing for an IPO. Besides registering as an independent company, the microblogging service also started using the new domain name weibo.com on April 7.

According to the site's Q1 results, Sina Weibo offered options equivalent to 15.9 percent of its ordinary shares to the management team and employees.

But Sina CEO Cao Guowei said his company currently doesn't have plans to spin-off Sina Weibo.

DST has invested in group-buying website Groupon, social game provider Zynga and social networking giant Facebook. The Russian company also took part in a third round of fundraising by Chinese online retailer 360buy.com in April.

据消息人士透露，俄罗斯投资公司Digital Sky Technologies(简称DST)出资5亿美元欲投资中国最热门的微博服务提供商新浪微博，遭到新浪微博拒绝。

据称，DST对新浪微博的估值为50亿美元。

新浪微博原为新浪网下属部门，去年10月份注册为独立公司，名为北京微梦创科网络技术有限公司，注册资本2000万美元，截至目前尚未进行过融资。

据最新公布的数据显示，新浪微博用户1.4亿。

目前，新浪微博分拆上市的足迹日渐清晰。除了注册成为独立公司，今年4月7日，新浪微博启用新域名weibo.com。

新浪一季报披露，新浪微博公司已经向管理层及员工发放了占摊薄后总股本15.9%的期权。

但新浪CEO曹国伟表示，新浪微博暂无分拆计划。

据悉，DST投资的公司有Groupon、Zynga和Facebook。今年4月份京东商城宣布完成C轮15亿美元融资，投资方包括DST。