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Investors
Founders
About
Pinterest is a visual discovery and bookmarking platform that allows users to find and save ideas for projects and interests. The company was founded in 2009 by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp 1. Pinterest emerged from an earlier app called Tote, a virtual replacement for paper catalogs built by Silbermann and Sciarra 2. Sharp met Silbermann in New York in 2009, and together the three built the first version of Pinterest from a small apartment in New York City 1.
The first desktop version of Pinterest launched in March 2010 from a two-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto 2. Growth was extremely slow initially — nine months after launching, Pinterest had fewer than 10,000 users 3. The company went on to raise over $1.47 billion across 12 rounds from 87 investors 4.
Pinterest went public on the New York Stock Exchange on April 18, 2019, under the ticker symbol PINS, at a valuation of approximately $12.7 billion, raising about $1.4 billion 5.
Funding History
| Round | Date | Amount | Lead Investor(s) | Key Co-Investors | Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | Dec 2010 | $700K | FirstMark Capital | Highline Ventures, angel investors 6 | — |
| Series A | Sep 2011 | $10M | Bessemer Venture Partners | — 6 | $40M pre-money |
| Series B | Oct 2011 | $27M | Andreessen Horowitz | — 7 | — |
| Series C | Aug 2012 | $100M | Rakuten | FirstMark 8 | $1.5B |
| Series D | 2013 | $200M | Valiant Capital Management | Rakuten, Bessemer, Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark 8 | $2.5B |
| Series E | Oct 2013 | $225M | Fidelity Investments | Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark, Bessemer, Valiant Capital 9 | $3.8B |
| Series F | May 2014 | $200M | SV Angel | Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Bessemer, FirstMark, Valiant Capital 10 | $5B |
| Series G | Mar 2015 | $367M | Wellington Management, Goldman Sachs | Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer, FirstMark, SV Angel, Valiant, Fidelity 11 | $11B |
| Series G ext. | May 2015 | $186M | — | Existing investors 12 | — |
| IPO | Apr 2019 | $1.4B | — | Public offering 5 | $12.7B |
SV Angel led Pinterest’s Series F round in 2014 at a $5 billion valuation, coordinating the investment through a special purpose vehicle for its network 10.
What Investors Say
Ron Conway, founder of SV Angel, said about Pinterest: “Pinterest is offering consumers a way to discover things on the web, in a serendipitous way, with a beautiful user interface. So it’s offering a whole new paradigm called ‘discover’ and allowing users to be creative” 13.
What Founders Say
Ben Silbermann on the early struggles of building Pinterest: “So March 2010, we launched Pinterest, and we were at 3,000 accounts. And that wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t started building Pinterest actually in November 2009. And that alone wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t left my job to start a company in May 2008” 3.
On the psychological toll of slow early growth: “I used to wake up and look at our analytics and think, ‘What if yesterday was the last day anyone used Pinterest?’ Like, everyone collectively decided, ‘We’re done!’ Over time I got more confidence” 3.
On why he kept going despite having fewer than 10,000 users nine months after launch, Silbermann said he hated the idea of telling people that he had failed: “It was a tough, but fun, time” 14.
On product development: “I think anyone who makes products has this simultaneous joy and, almost, shame looking at it. You look at it all day and all you can see is all these things you want to make better” 15.
Sources
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Buildd, “Ben Silbermann — Founder, CEO Pinterest Biography,” accessed March 2026. https://buildd.co/startup/founder-stories/ben-silbermann↩↩
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Startup Archive on X, “The founder of Pinterest on what surprised him the most when starting a company,” accessed March 2026. https://x.com/StartupArchive_/status/186544122195679663↩↩↩
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Tracxn, “Pinterest — 2026 Funding Rounds & List of Investors,” accessed March 2026. https://tracxn.com/d/companies/pinterest/__Zjw7pOKd_C2QefiL_J_Ofz0J2gC1HCjB2uOlZKc1O-Q/funding-and-investors↩
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Timeline of Pinterest, Wikipedia, accessed March 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Pinterest↩↩
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Bessemer Venture Partners, “Pinterest,” accessed March 2026. https://www.bvp.com/memos/pinterest↩↩
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Crunchbase, “Series B — Pinterest,” accessed March 2026. https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/pinterest-series-b–7bdc008a↩
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Global Venturing, “Pinterest collects $200m at $5bn valuation,” accessed March 2026. https://globalventuring.com/pinterest-collects-200m-at-5bn-valuation/↩↩
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TechCrunch, “Confirmed: Pinterest Raises $225 Million Series E, Valuing The Firm At $3.8 Billion,” October 23, 2013. https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/23/confirmed-pinterest-raises-225-million/↩
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TechCrunch, “SV Angel Leads Pinterest Financing At A $5 Billion Valuation,” May 15, 2014. https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/15/svangel-leads-pinterests-5-billion-round/↩↩
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Fortune, “Pinterest doubles its valuation with latest funding round and looks to raise more,” March 16, 2015. https://fortune.com/2015/03/16/pinterest-367-million-funding/↩
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TechCrunch, “Pinterest Adds $186M To Series G Funding Round, Offers Secondary Sale To Employees,” May 9, 2015. https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/09/pinterest-186m-series-g-plus-secondary-sale/↩
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ZURB Soapbox, “Ron Conway — Investing with the Godfather of Silicon Valley,” accessed March 2026. https://zurb.com/soapbox/ron-conway-zurbsoapbox-investing-with-the-godfather-of-silicon-valley↩
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Inc., “How Fear of Embarrassment Kept Pinterest Alive,” accessed March 2026. https://www.inc.com/christine-lagorio/pinterest-ben-silbermann-talks-building-his-company.html↩
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BrainyQuote, “Ben Silbermann Quotes,” accessed March 2026. https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/ben-silbermann-quotes↩