The two year old company, which has no revenue, has now raised more than $123m following the latest injection from Coatue Management, according to reports.
Snapchat has tens of millions of users, mainly teenagers and people in their twenties. The service allows them to share "Snaps" – photos, videos, text or drawings – for a set period of time, currently between one to 10 seconds. After this time, the snaps will be hidden from the recipient's device and deleted from Snapchat's servers, leaving no digital trail.
Snapchat was founded by a group of Stanford students and is run by Evan Spiegel, the company's 23 year old chief executive. The company made headlines last month when it emerged it had turned down a $3bn acquisition offer from Facebook.
Snapchat raised $60m earlier this year at a valuation of $800m. Its backers include Lightspeen Venture Partners, Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark.
In August, the Co-operative claimed a "retail first" when it . The promotional campaign for students sent out a code via Snapchat offering £30 off laptops, which self destructed after five to 10 seconds.
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