Pinterest has raised more than half a billion dollars in latest funding

Pinterest has managed to raise an additional $186 million of funding, with new investors Goldman Sachs and Wellington Management Company contributing to a financing round that now totals more than half a billion dollars.

Pinterest secures $186 million in Series G

The new funding, reported by Re/code on Friday, is the completion of a Series G funding round that values the private San Franciscan company at around $11 billion. Pinterest also raised $367 million earlier this year and said in a filing that it could raise a further $208 million.

There are apparently dozens of investors eager to support the highly-valued social networking firm, which also began experimenting with revenue generating ads in January.

Goldman Sachs and Wellington now join existing investor Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, SV Angel, Valiant Capital Management and Fidelity Investments.

Pinterest will apparently allow employees to cash out their equity with a “secondary offering” with unnamed external investors at the $11 billion, claims Re/code. Employees with stock that vested before April 30 should be able to sell a “small portion” of their shares.

“The environment around startups have changed dramatically over past the couple of years but companies, equity programs and philosophies have not changed at all and we think they should so that’s why we launched an options extension and now are offering a secondary,” said a company spokesman.

In March, Pinterest told its more than 500 employees that those who have been with the company for at least two years and choose to leave can keep their vested stock options for another seven years without exercising them. The decision is a departure from typical start-up policy, which usually gives employees just 90 days to exercise their share options after leaving the company, saddling them with a big tax bill.

SOURCE: Re/code.