Goldman Sachs Helps Pinterest Secure $186M

Pinterest has secured another big round of funding. This time, the funding series was led by new investors Goldman Sachs and Wellington Management Company, with the help of current investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, SV Angel, Valiant Capital Management and Fidelity Investments, Re/code reported.

A recent SEC filing shows that Pinterest raised $367 million, but this most recent funding series secured by the company hit $186 million — bringing its total amount raised to $553 million between the two rounds.

Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp told Re/code in an interview that the company has also offered its employees an option to sell its shares. Those employees will can choose to sell some of their stock to outside investors, but it was not announced how many of its employees would be eligible to take part in this opportunity. Sharp said this change was being made to help Pinterest evolve as it grows from a startup to the more established company it is evolving into.

“We’ve focused a lot since the beginning of the year on our relationship with employees and on what role we play in the modern startup environment,” Sharp told Re/code. “We’re trying to build this opt-in culture, and we think this is the way to do it. …People want to work at a company that has their best interest in mind.”

Outside of its fundraising side, Pinterest is working to help open up its API beyond its marketing side to the developing world. The virtual scrapbooking site recently announced the beta version of the Pinterest Developers Platform, which is a suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow developers to build apps and integrations based on Pinterest users’ Pins, boards, and followers.

While the new platform is not necessarily open to anyone and everyone — instead requiring interested third-party developers to apply for access — the announcement is certainly a broader step compared to Pinterest’s previously released API, Marketing Developer Partners, which was (and is) available exclusively to select marketers.