Telegram Messaging App Raises $150 Million From Middle East Investors

Telegram Messaging App Raises $150 Million From Middle East Investors

Share to Linkedin The Telegram instant messaging app seen on an iPhone in this photo illustration on June 26, 2020 in ... [+] Warsaw, Poland (Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Two Abu Dhabi-based funds have invested $150 million in messaging app Telegram, which has its global development centre in neighbouring Dubai. The investment in the firm is being shared equally by the state-owned Mubadala Investment Company and Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners - the latter being a joint venture of Mubadala and New York-based Falcon Edge Capital. They have bought what are described as five-year, pre-IPO convertible bonds, although it is not clear what sized shareholding in the company the debt could be converted into. Telegram was set up in 2013 by Russian-born brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov and says it now has more than 500 million active users. Faris Al-Mazrui, head of Mubadala's Russia and CIS investment programme, said Telegram's user base had now reached "critical mass" and said the company was well-placed to become a "leading global technology company". It has had a distinctly peripatetic history. According to its website, most of the developers originally come from Russia's second city of St. Petersburg but it left Russia due