Funding

Facebook received its first investment of US$500,000 in June 2004 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.^[13] This was followed a year later by $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, and then $27.5 million more from Greylock Partners.^[13][14] A cash flow statement was leaked, showing that during the 2005 fiscal year, Facebook had a net loss of $3.63 million.^[15] Microsoft approached Facebook in September 2007, proposing an investment in return for a 5% stake in the company. Microsoft would pay an estimated $300–500 million for the share.^[16] Microsoft announced on October 24, 2007 that it purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $246 million.^[17] On November 30, 2007, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing invested $60 million in Facebook.

reported on March 28, 2006 that a potential acquisition of the website was under negotiation. Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million from an unknown bidder, and it was rumored the asking price rose as high as $2 billion.^[19] With the sale of social networking website MySpace to News Corp on July 19, 2005, rumors surfaced about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company.^[20] Zuckerberg had already said he did not want to sell the company and denied rumors to the contrary.^[21] In late September, serious talks between Facebook and Yahoo! took place concerning acquisition of the social network, with prices reaching as high as $1 billion.^[22] Thiel, by then a board member of Facebook, indicated that Facebook's internal valuation was around $8 billion based on their projected revenues of $1 billion by 2015, comparable to Viacom's MTV brand, a company with a shared target demographic audience.^[23] Other companies, including Google, expressed interest in September 2007 to buy a portion of Facebook.^[24] Amid the rumors, Zuckerberg claimed that selling Facebook was unlikely because he wanted to keep it independent, stating on July 17, 2007, "We're not really looking to sell the company. [...] We're not looking to IPO anytime soon. It's just not the core focus of the company