Pinterest raises additional $186M to complete $553M Series G, adding Wellington and Goldman Sachs, lets employees sell “a small portion” of their stock
Pinterest Adds $186 Million to Series G Round, Lets Employees Sell Shares — Pinterest has completed the rest …
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes out a raise Pinterest began shopping in February, when reports surfaced that it wanted another $500M at an $11B valuation. A $367M first tranche arrived in March, earmarked for international expansion, and today's $186M completes the $553M Series G while bringing Wellington and Goldman Sachs onto the cap table as new names alongside existing backers.
The structural detail is the secondary component: letting employees sell 'a small portion' of their holdings converts part of this round from growth capital into a retention-and-liquidity tool. It matters because the private mark set here ages into the company's next chapter — two years on, existing investors re-upped at the same share price as this round, and the eventual IPO priced below the $11B Series G level.
First-order effects
- Wellington and Goldman Sachs enter Pinterest as new investors, completing the $553M Series G at the $11B valuation first floated in February.
- Pinterest employees gain immediate liquidity, selling a small slice of their vested stock into the round rather than waiting for an exit.
Second-order effects
- Bundling employee secondaries into a mega-round gives Pinterest a retention lever ahead of any listing — and sets a template its own investors followed when they re-upped at a flat price in 2017 rather than marking up.
- Crossover entrants like Wellington and Goldman Sachs signal that mutual-fund-scale money is now underwriting late-stage consumer platforms, compressing the distinction between private and public investor bases before Pinterest has filed anything.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, late-stage rounds double as de facto partial exits for staff — which raises the stakes when the private mark meets public pricing: Pinterest ultimately raised $1.43B in its IPO at a $10B valuation, below this round's $11B, meaning public buyers initially paid less than the crossover funds did here even as first-day trading pushed the value back up.
The trend: Late-stage venture rounds are increasingly doubling as employee liquidity events funded by crossover capital, leaving a widening gap between private marks and eventual IPO pricing that both employees and late investors absorb.