MICROBLOGGING SITE TWITTER is now worth $3.7 billion (€2.8bn) after raising a further $200m in funding from venture capital investors.

The investment in the site – understood to have been in return for what becomes a 5.4% stake in the company, as well as the addition of two new directors – values the site at $3.7bn, parallel to the value of many of the internet’s best-known public companies are worth.

The bulk of the funding came from Silicon Valley investor vehicle Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Reuters reports, with the remainder coming from existing investors to the site.

Reuters quotes an analyst from BGC Partners, Colin Gillis, who estimates that the site currently earns under $100m a year – but that the site, given its sheer size, could be monetised effectively if an appropriate form of advertising could be developed.

A Twitter blog post said the funding would “help us continue to grow as a company.”

The new valuation means that the likelihood of a public share offering now seems greater, though the site would be considered a weak prospect if it could not find a way to successfully monetise its userbase.

Twitter’s most recent figures suggested a worldwide userbase of about 175 million as of September.

The latest investment dwarfs any previous valuation of the site; previous investments in the Twitter site had totalled $160m.