Facebook Looks to Europe

Facebook has received a "significant" investment from the Samwer brothers, three German Internet entrepreneurs, Reuters reports.

Alexander Samwer declined to divulge the value of the investment, though he said that it was less than the $240 million that Microsoft paid in October to acquire a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook -- a deal that valued the social networking site at $15 billion. An unnamed source told the Wall Street Journal the Samwer investment is between $10 million and $15 million.

Facebook, a private company, has annual earnings of $30 million on $150 million in revenue, according to published reports.

Samwer told Reuters that the investment was intended to position the brothers as Facebook's "strategic partner" in Europe.

"We are going to support the expansion of Facebook in Europe," Samwer said. "We know the online space in Europe extremely well."

"We think Facebook is, after Google, the most innovative company to have emerged in the last few years," Samwer added. "We think it will be the phenomenon for the Internet that Windows was for the desktop."

Facebook spokesperson Brandee Barker declined to comment on the investment.

The move illustrates that despite Facebook's recent stumbles -- including the disastrous launch of Beacon, the company's "social advertising" initiative - the company is committed to aggressively expanding its reach beyond the United States.

The brothers' investment follows a $60 million infusion in Facebook by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-Shing, chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. Both the Samwer investment and the Li Ka-Shing investment adhere to the $15 billion valuation set by Microsoft's investment, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Samwer brothers first came to prominence when they sold German website Alando.de to eBay for $54 million in 1999. But they really hit the jackpot when they sold ringtone company Jamba to Verisign - now part of News Corp. - for $273 million in 2004.

The brothers - whose company is called the European Founders Fund - have already invested in a number of web-based ventures, including LinkedIn, Anshe Chung Studios, and German social network StudiVZ, which was sold last year.

Sam Gustin