Telegram now serves more than 500 million active users, its Russian co-founder Pavel Durov announced Tuesday. Twenty-five million new users joined the platform in the previous 72 hours alone.
“We’ve had surges of downloads before, throughout our seven-year history of protecting user privacy, but this time is different,” Durov emphasized.
The surge comes as rival platform WhatsApp changed its privacy policies, fuelling concerns among many users, and Facebook and Twitter took a controversial line on users promoting violent political struggle, including Donald Trump.
Thus, around 540,000 US iPhone owners installed Telegram between Wednesday and Sunday last week, nearly three times as many as the previous week, according to Sensor Tower research data cited by The Telegraph.
Major influxes also came from Asia, Europe and Latin America, according to Telegram.
“People no longer want to exchange their privacy for free services. They no longer want to be held hostage by tech monopolies that seem to think they can get away with anything as long as their apps have a critical mass of users,” believes Durov, touting Telegram as “the largest refuge for those seeking a communication platform committed to privacy and security.”
Monetization and debt financing
To support its growth, the platform is actively seeking to develop revenue streams. As announced in December, Telegram prepares to launch paid services. It needs “at least a few hundred million dollars per year” in order to “to launch countless new features and welcome billions of new users,” Durov stated at that time.
These paid services are unlikely to fully meet the financial needs of the company, which has been mostly funded by Durov’s personal fortune since inception in 2013.
Thus, Telegram has “discussed with banks and investors raising hundreds of millions of dollars in debt that would convert to shares in an eventual public offering,” The Information heard from “two people familiar with Durov’s thinking.”
The funding could exceed $1 billion, said one of these sources, even though plans could still change.
Telegram not for sale
As noted by The Information, Telegram faces an April deadline to repay money to investors who backed its TON blockchain project in an 2018 ICO that brought in some $1.7 billion. The project failed, but Durov agreed with the US authorities last year that Telegram will refund to the investors 70% of the ICO proceeds.
After partial settlements, an undisclosed amount remains to be repaid, according to The Information.
“Telegram is constantly approached by many parties with debt financing proposals,” company spokesman Markus Ra told the business publication. “We are currently evaluating these proposals, but no decision has been taken on which path to follow.”
Telegram “will not commit to any obligations imposing any form of mandatory exit event” — a merger, sale or IPO, — Ra added.
Most of Telegram’s 60 to 70 employees are based in Dubai. They have no equity in the company and “are generally kept in the dark about business plans,” a source told The Information.
Update Jan. 15: According to media reports, Durov rejected Western funds’ offer to buy 5%-10% of Telegram at a $30 billion valuation.
