Snapchat is one of the world's fastest-growing mobile apps, with users sharing more than 200 million "snaps" per day. For the uninitiated (or those over 30), "snaps" are instant messages/photos that self-destruct ten seconds or less after being viewed.

    It also has one of the mobile world's fastest-growing valuations, with multiple reports out today that the company has raised $60 million in new VC funding at an $800 million pre-money valuation (the company confirmed the deal, sans financial specifics).

    What Snapchat doesn't have yet, however, is revenue. Nor does it have easily identifiable paths to revenue.

    Traditional mobile advertising would seem to be a no-go, given how quickly snaps disappear. There may be some residual recall value like with television ads, although it's tough to compare a 10-second view when the user is focused on something else (i.e., the snap's content) to a 30-second spot where the user only has one thing to watch on the screen. Much of the data also seems fleeting, compared with information collected by such companies as Pinterest and Tumblr. And, speaking of Tumblr, it was acquired by Yahoo (YHOO) at a valuation just 25% or so higher than this round. That would be a decent return for late-stage investors like IVP, but hardly spectacular.

    So is this valuation based solely on massive usage/growth, and the belief that someone like Yahoo (YHOO) will be desperate for it as a feature? That doesn't make sense to me either, given that Tumblr sold for just 25% more than the post-money. Snapchat always could introduce some sort of subscription model -- or make unlimited snaps a premium service -- but that could eat a bit into the growth and enable cannibalization by a rival service.

    Or maybe the snap service is really just a Trojan horse, securing users while the company polishes up what could become the de facto mobile camera app.

    Snapchat是全世界成长最快的移动应用之一，它的用户每天分享的“快照”数量超过2亿张。或许你还不知道Snapchat（30岁以上的读者恐怕都不太知道它），“快照”是在被查看后的10秒钟内自动销毁的即时消息或照片。

    Snapchat的估价的攀升速度在移动应用中也是首屈一指。昨天有多份报告指出，Snapchat在新一轮风险融资中筹得6,000万美元，融资前估值为8亿美元（Snapchat证实了这笔交易，但没有透露具体的财务细节）。

    然而，Snapchat目前还没有收入，也没有清晰可见的获得收入的路径。

    鉴于“快照”很快就自动销毁了，传统的移动广告模式似乎不适合。或许同电视广告一样，可能会有一些回忆价值。但就电视广告而言，在30秒的广告插播时段，观众在电视屏幕上只有广告可看。而就“Snapchat”而言，仅有短短10秒的时间，而且在此期间用户是专注于别的东西（即“快照”消息的内容）。而且，较之Pinterest和Tumblr等公司聚集的信息，Snapchat上的许多信息似乎是转瞬即逝。说到Tumblr，它被雅虎（Yahoo）收购时的估价也就比Snapchat本轮估价高出25％左右。这样的回报对IVP等后期投资者而言还算可以，但远算不上丰厚。

    那么，对Snapchat的估价是否单单是根据它海量的使用量和飞速增长，以及相信会有雅虎那样的公司不顾一切地接盘？我认为这也说不过去，因为Tumblr最终的卖价也就比融资后估值高出25％。当然，Snapchat可以引入某种订阅模式——或将无限量“快照”变成收费服务——但这可能会对它的增长造成一定的影响，而且可能导致用户和市场份额被竞争对手蚕食。

    又或许“快照”服务其实只是一个幌子，目的是圈住用户，同时Snapchat可以完善它真正的移动摄像应用程序。

    One person who should know the answer is Dennis Phelps of Institutional Venture Partners, which led the new financing round. Unfortunately, he isn't doing interviews on the deal. Instead, he wrote a blog post titled Ten Reasons Why IVP Invested in Snapchat. It left me with two thoughts:

    1. Either Phelps is a lousy venture capitalist who doesn't know what he's doing, or

    2. He knows exactly what he's doing, and has expertly talked around telling readers of the blog post.

    My guess is the latter.

    Seriously, many of the reasons Phelps gives are generic enough that they could apply to dozens of startups, if not to hundreds. Mobile-first? Focused on imagery rather than text? The founders are digital natives? The company is based in Southern California?

    And some of them just aren't good reasons to invest. Namely the ones about following smart Series A investors (Benchmark and Lightspeed) and the one about "because they let us."

    So that's why I come back to the idea that Snapchat has a grand plan that neither it, nor its investors, are willing to divulge. Yet. Not even in a 10-second message that self-destructs.

    牵头进行本轮融资的Institutional Venture Partners公司丹尼斯•菲尔普斯应该知道上述问题的答案。不幸的是，他不接受关于此交易的采访。但他写了一篇名为《IVP投资Snapchat的十大理由》的博客文章。这篇文章使我产生了两个想法：

    1、要么菲尔普斯是位蹩脚的风险资本家，根本不懂行；

    2、要么菲尔普斯其实心里跟明镜似地，只是故意兜圈子，不想让博文读者弄明白。

    我猜后一种更可信。

    说真的，菲尔普斯给出的好几条原因可谓宽泛至极，可以适用于几十家乃至数百家新创企业。比如说移动至上？专注于图像而非文字？创始人是“数码原生代”？公司总部设在南加州？

    另外，菲尔普斯给出的有些原因根本不是好的投资理由，比如说追随聪明的首轮投资者【基准资本（Benchmark）和光速创投（Lightspeed）】，还有“因为他们让我们投”。

    所以，我不禁怀疑Snapchat其实有一个宏伟的计划，只不过这家公司及其投资者目前都不愿透露。就连就此发布一条10秒钟就自行销毁的“快照”消息也不行。（财富中文网）

    译者：项航