Russian firm buys a piece of Facebook

The cost was $200 million, but the investment may be worth much more than that. On Tuesday, a Russian investment firm called Digital Sky Technologies made the investment in the social networking company. Social networking has spread worldwide, but now the business-side is going global, as well. The Russian company now owns a 1.96 percent stake in Facebook.

Microsoft paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in 2007, before the market crashed, reports the New York Times.

"Relative to the economic conditions for when the Microsoft deal happened and that being more of a strategic partnership than a straight financial investment, we feel really good about the progress we've made," Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief, told the Times and other reporters in a conference call.

Ironically, Facebook does not need the money. Zuckerberg says revenue is growing 70 percent year over year and Facebook is poised to operate from existing cash flow in 2010, even without the additional investment.

For more on the Russian investment in Facebook:
- check out this New York Times article

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