Twitter Inc. announced that it managed to close a $35-million venture capital round led by Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital.

Co-founder Biz Stone explained that even though the company still had a significant amount of money stacked away from two earlier funding rounds, which totaled $20 million, the offer received was impossible to refuse.

"Our strong growth attracted interest, and we decided to accept a unique opportunity to make Twitter even stronger with a very attractive offer," Mr. Stone wrote in a corporate blog post which is titled "Opportunity Knocks." He also added that the Web site’s active user base recorded a growth of more than 900 percent in 2008.

He concluded by addressing the use found for the money,  which will go toward expanding the company's 29 - person staff - expected to soon get a whole lot bigger, "and yes, to begin building revenue-generating products." This is a very important aspect of its plans for the future, as the company needs to decide on pursuing a certain business segment. Among the possible directions are services like real-time search and premium marketing services for brands.

Twitter was initially developed inside podcasting company Odeo as a research and development project and it was used internally by its employees. Later in 2006 it was released as a social networking and micro-blogging service, designed to allow its users to send and read other users' updates. It was received with great enthusiasm and its popularity managed to reach unexpected hights in just two years time.