Can Telegram square the circle and break WhatsApp’s hold on instant messaging?
Squaring the circle, the task of constructing with a ruler and a compass a square that has an area equal to that of a given circle, is one of those great unsolvable mathematical problems.
Telegram now has half a billion active users worldwide, and its creator, Pavel Durov, is a particularly brilliant and highly motivated person who seems capable of solving pretty much any problem. Since its launch in August 2013, Telegram has enjoyed steady growth, funded entirely by its founder, who left his previous creation, the Russian social network VK, with $300 million in his pocket.
In short, everything indicates that Telegram is doing very well: when its most direct competitor, WhatsApp, reached a similar number of active users worldwide, it received a takeover offer from Facebook estimated at some $19 billion. If we consider that figure as an appropriate comparable for valuation purposes, then the multiplier for its founders would be extremely positive.
But the facts suggest we are talking about much higher valuations: the company has just raised $1 billion through the sale of convertible bonds to investors such as Mubadala and Abu Dhabi CP via pre-IPO convertible bonds in preparation for an eventual IPO, and some of the bids it rejected previously put its value at…
