13 ms·

Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

60 points by jmsflknr 3y ago

nafey 3y ago
Getting into debt with highest interest rate in decades doesn't bode well for the future. On the other hand, VC funding seems to have dried up as well. Between rock and a hard place.
- fisherjeff 3y ago
  Eh, I’d be surprised if the bonds weren’t callable.
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    Eh, why do you think that?
    - fisherjeff 3y ago
      I mean for one thing, a cursory look at the bond market right now shows callable bonds outnumber non-callables 10 to 1.
- Thoeu388 3y ago
  Telegram is one social network that has a huge potential for growth today. It is a dominant platform for War reporting from both sides. And it is not compromised by history of censorship, and CIA connections, like other social networks. We will probably see it growing in US, as we get closer to elections, and censorship tightens!
  - sethherr 3y ago
    It is compromised by Russian connections though
    - Thoeu388 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - rcme 3y ago
        Some people are also idiots.
        MengerSponge 3y ago
        I don't know about you, but my household buys Russian for its legendary quality
      - pavlov 3y ago
        “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a fallacy that does seem to be driving increasing numbers of Americans to positions that are indistinguishable from Russian talking points. Saves money for Putin’s troll factory at least.
        Thoeu388 3y ago
        Is there any other solid alternative? Gab? Or Twitter under Musk? Or some other federated network? What platform would you recommend to people in Turkey, Iran, Africa... Or opposition in West that sometimes can not even get bank accounts? It is a serious question! Russia is far away, it is not going to put you in jail. We need to communicate.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - fortuna86 3y ago
        [dead]
      - kemotep 3y ago
        If you are tired of “various Russia Gates affairs” then being happy with a company having ties to the Russian government seems counterproductive.
  - chologrande 3y ago
    Sure - but where's the revenue come from?
    - spacebanana7 3y ago
      Chinese chat apps have monetised really well through e-commerce. Admittedly this success hasn't be achieved by WhatsApp etc, so it not trivial to replicate.
    - Thoeu388 3y ago
      How much revenue do they need to generate for $250M investment? Paid version with extra features, $40M per year, and they will do fine.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > How much revenue do they need to generate for $250M investment $30 to 40 million for interest on this issue. Telegram sold $1bn of bonds in March 2021, when rates were 25 bps, with a 7% coupon [1]. Rates are now 5.25%. Their new bonds should thus yield 12%+. That implies a total annual interest bill over $100 million, with a refinancing in 2026 on $1bn. Not ideal. [1] https://bondblox.com/news/messaging-app-telegram-sells-bonds-worth-1bn-to-investors-including-mubadala https://bondblox.com/news/messaging-app-telegram-sells-bonds...
    - sofixa 3y ago
      They have Telegram Premium, and ads for public channels, so there are revenue streams.
    - chii 3y ago
      the revenue comes from the future acquirer of the company paying out to the current shareholders. I don't really believe consumers of telegram are willing to pay for it. It's in the same boat financially as twitter - but got better PR atm.
  - dgellow 3y ago
    I don’t know what you’re implying exactly but Telegram does collaborate with local laws in countries they operate, and that’s counting takedowns and criminal investigations when illegal content is being shared, as every business entity should do.
    - shubb 3y ago
      Telegram is based in UAE, a country famous for Totok, a social network designed to spy on you. The UAE is an absolute monarchy, and the law is a little more openly a tool if the state than in the west. A company with legal challenges exists there because the state wants it to. The UAE looks unaligned but in a real way it is part of a Chinese Russian axis when it comes to this sort of thing. For example totok was based on Chinese spyware. For those of us who don't share truly sensitive information, I'm sure it's fine, but Ukrainian war reporters probably shouldn't have it installed.
      - CryptoBanker 3y ago
        Would it shock you to learn that Telegram is a major source of news for the ongoing Ukraine/Russia conflict? https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17868 https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17868
- Barrin92 3y ago
  Durov's worth more than 10 billion and he bought a quarter of the bonds himself, so at the end of the day he can keep the lights on for a long time. That's basically how Telegram has been financed up until now.
sedatk 3y ago
> the Dubai-headquartered firm huh, I thought Telegram was still stationed in Germany. I wonder what made them move.
- Longhanks 3y ago
  Extreme taxes compared to Dubai, a government (or the EU on that matter) wanting to permanently dismantle end-to-end encryption, slow local authorities (however I don’t know the situation in Dubai concerning that - I assume though nearly every state on the earth is more efficient than Germany regarding bureaucracy), local authorities that often can’t communicate in English... Germany is not an attractive place for smaller companies, especially for those formed outside of the country and not perfectly familiar with the German language.
  - izacus 3y ago
    Which of those reasons was quoted by Telegram and where?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - qlkjwenf 3y ago
    Yeah, and tax authorities who refuse to communicate by using anything else but paper documents sent as letters... Glad I will leave Germany soon.
    - Amfy 3y ago
      Where will you move to?
      - giords 3y ago
        Dubai
        p-e-w 3y ago
000ooo000 3y ago
Telegram is probably the only app that I use that I'm completely fine with it automatically updating. Hard to find software that doesn't fk it up by adding stupid or user-hostile "features"/bloat. Telegram has been solid across the web, android, linux and windows clients I've been using for years. For that reason, I bought telegram premium. Shame to hear they're still not breaking even, must be tough. E: downvoted for this?
- the_gipsy 3y ago
  > stupid or user-hostile "features"/bloat Pushing cryptoscams and paywalling a subset of emoji-reactions made me move off of telegram. Now I use matrix and as a nice side effect I have whatsapp and telegram bridged in one app. Of course, it's all open source with the typical lack of polishing. But nobody is gonna pull the rug under me because the company needs $$$ after acquiring users.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    So who will end up paying for the server costs? I don’t have a problem with their monetary model, because they don’t paywall any essential feature. and not in-your-face about it, and it really is one of the few apps I use on every single device I own.
  - dgellow 3y ago
    I have no idea what you’re talking about. Telegram has been the most polished cross platform chat application since its release. All emoji are available without paying? There is no cryptocurrency involved? The whole application is free, and you can get some small benefits by paying a small amount, that’s the least predatory business model one could hope for.
    - chrisnight 3y ago
      > There is no cryptocurrency involved? Have you heard about the mess that was Durov’s channel some months ago? Telegram is now reserving and then selling usernames as NFTs for crypto on a new site: fragment.com (Use a VPN since it blocks access from the US) Durov first announced it on his channel and the large majority of the telegram community downvoted it to show disapproval of integrating NFTs and crypto into telegram [1]. Telegram/Durov’s response? Disable negative reactions and ignore it. For later posts, talk about how there was such a great response to them (because only negative reactions were disabled), and how they’re moving forward with it. Then, when they started, what happened to the people with their old names? Telegram took them without warning [2]. And it wasn’t just any common names, multiple chats I was in had their name, their brand taken even though it was multiple semi-common words stringed together to 19+ characters. [1] and [2] - I can’t find an online source currently on my phone. I can personally vouch for it, but I understand evidence would be appreciated. If anyone can find a source, that would be greatly appreciated.
slmlm 3y ago
Last time I was in Dubai, Telegram was blocked and I needed to setup a proxy to get access. So it is ironic that they are headquartered there. Maybe it is not blocked there now, I do not know.
- Thoeu388 3y ago
  UAE blocks most voice over IP apps. Something related to telecom monopoly.
darthrupert 3y ago
People should seriously move to Signal.
- mojuba 3y ago
  From my experience of constantly using both, Signal's UX is inferior unfortunately. On both macOS and iOS Signal feels like a second grade cross-platform app with a clunky Android feel (no ribbon effect, no animations, poor aesthetics). Telegram's UX quality is far superior to any other messenger app that I've ever used. Its social functions are quite nice too, I think Telegram invented some of them before they were copied by the others. The thing with Telegram though is that you can never trust a private company if you are a journalist, dissident or a government official. We don't know whether Pavel Durov is as independent as he wants us to believe he is. The big red flag in the Telegram story is why it's still not banned or censored in Russia. We don't know. But all in all, kudos to those who have built it, they have my respect, Telegram is one of the best pieces of software at least among the messaging apps.
  - jamil7 3y ago
    I also use both extensively and I agree, Telegram has the best UX of any messaging app. The desktop app is QT I think so it feels very snappy compared to Signal's electron app. Signal's iOS app is a native Swift/UIKit app and open source however, so I'd encourage you to report any bugs or issues you find: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS
    - darthrupert 3y ago
      It is a very good client indeed, and Signal is not really catching up. Perhaps Matrix's upcoming Element X -client could reach that level of quality.
      - kaba0 3y ago
        Thanks for mentioning Element X. I do like the Matrix protocol, but their former ios app was very buggy.
nubinetwork 3y ago
Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36778211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36778211
solarkraft 3y ago
I have my issues with Telegram, but damn, the thing works. That's more than I can say about basically all the alternatives. The apps are designed and made well and the servers are pretty reliable. Who'd have thought that it's so hard to make a chat app?
- hardware2win 3y ago
  Discord?
  - CryptoBanker 3y ago
    Discord performance is garbage compared to Telegram. Especially on desktop
arein3 3y ago
Telegram is the only popular chat app available on f-droid.
tortoise_in 3y ago
Emm,where they host and there is no encryption by default! Why not use xmpp?
- Zash 3y ago
  XMPP simply does not have enough Hype, it's just boring old technology that keeps working and getting better over time despite lack of funding and startups.

60 points by jmsflknr 3y ago

Getting into debt with highest interest rate in decades doesn't bode well for the future. On the other hand, VC funding seems to have dried up as well. Between rock and a hard place.

fisherjeff 3y ago
Eh, I’d be surprised if the bonds weren’t callable.
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  Eh, why do you think that?
  - fisherjeff 3y ago
    I mean for one thing, a cursory look at the bond market right now shows callable bonds outnumber non-callables 10 to 1.
Thoeu388 3y ago
Telegram is one social network that has a huge potential for growth today. It is a dominant platform for War reporting from both sides. And it is not compromised by history of censorship, and CIA connections, like other social networks. We will probably see it growing in US, as we get closer to elections, and censorship tightens!
- sethherr 3y ago
  It is compromised by Russian connections though
  - Thoeu388 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - rcme 3y ago
      Some people are also idiots.
      - MengerSponge 3y ago
        I don't know about you, but my household buys Russian for its legendary quality
    - pavlov 3y ago
      “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a fallacy that does seem to be driving increasing numbers of Americans to positions that are indistinguishable from Russian talking points. Saves money for Putin’s troll factory at least.
      - Thoeu388 3y ago
        Is there any other solid alternative? Gab? Or Twitter under Musk? Or some other federated network? What platform would you recommend to people in Turkey, Iran, Africa... Or opposition in West that sometimes can not even get bank accounts? It is a serious question! Russia is far away, it is not going to put you in jail. We need to communicate.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - fortuna86 3y ago
      [dead]
    - kemotep 3y ago
      If you are tired of “various Russia Gates affairs” then being happy with a company having ties to the Russian government seems counterproductive.
- chologrande 3y ago
  Sure - but where's the revenue come from?
  - spacebanana7 3y ago
    Chinese chat apps have monetised really well through e-commerce. Admittedly this success hasn't be achieved by WhatsApp etc, so it not trivial to replicate.
  - Thoeu388 3y ago
    How much revenue do they need to generate for $250M investment? Paid version with extra features, $40M per year, and they will do fine.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > How much revenue do they need to generate for $250M investment $30 to 40 million for interest on this issue. Telegram sold $1bn of bonds in March 2021, when rates were 25 bps, with a 7% coupon [1]. Rates are now 5.25%. Their new bonds should thus yield 12%+. That implies a total annual interest bill over $100 million, with a refinancing in 2026 on $1bn. Not ideal. [1] https://bondblox.com/news/messaging-app-telegram-sells-bonds-worth-1bn-to-investors-including-mubadala https://bondblox.com/news/messaging-app-telegram-sells-bonds...
  - sofixa 3y ago
    They have Telegram Premium, and ads for public channels, so there are revenue streams.
  - chii 3y ago
    the revenue comes from the future acquirer of the company paying out to the current shareholders. I don't really believe consumers of telegram are willing to pay for it. It's in the same boat financially as twitter - but got better PR atm.
- dgellow 3y ago
  I don’t know what you’re implying exactly but Telegram does collaborate with local laws in countries they operate, and that’s counting takedowns and criminal investigations when illegal content is being shared, as every business entity should do.
  - shubb 3y ago
    Telegram is based in UAE, a country famous for Totok, a social network designed to spy on you. The UAE is an absolute monarchy, and the law is a little more openly a tool if the state than in the west. A company with legal challenges exists there because the state wants it to. The UAE looks unaligned but in a real way it is part of a Chinese Russian axis when it comes to this sort of thing. For example totok was based on Chinese spyware. For those of us who don't share truly sensitive information, I'm sure it's fine, but Ukrainian war reporters probably shouldn't have it installed.
    - CryptoBanker 3y ago
      Would it shock you to learn that Telegram is a major source of news for the ongoing Ukraine/Russia conflict? https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17868 https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17868
Barrin92 3y ago
Durov's worth more than 10 billion and he bought a quarter of the bonds himself, so at the end of the day he can keep the lights on for a long time. That's basically how Telegram has been financed up until now.

sedatk 3y ago

> the Dubai-headquartered firm huh, I thought Telegram was still stationed in Germany. I wonder what made them move.

Longhanks 3y ago
Extreme taxes compared to Dubai, a government (or the EU on that matter) wanting to permanently dismantle end-to-end encryption, slow local authorities (however I don’t know the situation in Dubai concerning that - I assume though nearly every state on the earth is more efficient than Germany regarding bureaucracy), local authorities that often can’t communicate in English... Germany is not an attractive place for smaller companies, especially for those formed outside of the country and not perfectly familiar with the German language.
- izacus 3y ago
  Which of those reasons was quoted by Telegram and where?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- qlkjwenf 3y ago
  Yeah, and tax authorities who refuse to communicate by using anything else but paper documents sent as letters... Glad I will leave Germany soon.
  - Amfy 3y ago
    Where will you move to?
    - giords 3y ago
      Dubai
      - p-e-w 3y ago

000ooo000 3y ago

Telegram is probably the only app that I use that I'm completely fine with it automatically updating. Hard to find software that doesn't fk it up by adding stupid or user-hostile "features"/bloat. Telegram has been solid across the web, android, linux and windows clients I've been using for years. For that reason, I bought telegram premium. Shame to hear they're still not breaking even, must be tough. E: downvoted for this?

the_gipsy 3y ago
> stupid or user-hostile "features"/bloat Pushing cryptoscams and paywalling a subset of emoji-reactions made me move off of telegram. Now I use matrix and as a nice side effect I have whatsapp and telegram bridged in one app. Of course, it's all open source with the typical lack of polishing. But nobody is gonna pull the rug under me because the company needs $$$ after acquiring users.
- kaba0 3y ago
  So who will end up paying for the server costs? I don’t have a problem with their monetary model, because they don’t paywall any essential feature. and not in-your-face about it, and it really is one of the few apps I use on every single device I own.
- dgellow 3y ago
  I have no idea what you’re talking about. Telegram has been the most polished cross platform chat application since its release. All emoji are available without paying? There is no cryptocurrency involved? The whole application is free, and you can get some small benefits by paying a small amount, that’s the least predatory business model one could hope for.
  - chrisnight 3y ago
    > There is no cryptocurrency involved? Have you heard about the mess that was Durov’s channel some months ago? Telegram is now reserving and then selling usernames as NFTs for crypto on a new site: fragment.com (Use a VPN since it blocks access from the US) Durov first announced it on his channel and the large majority of the telegram community downvoted it to show disapproval of integrating NFTs and crypto into telegram [1]. Telegram/Durov’s response? Disable negative reactions and ignore it. For later posts, talk about how there was such a great response to them (because only negative reactions were disabled), and how they’re moving forward with it. Then, when they started, what happened to the people with their old names? Telegram took them without warning [2]. And it wasn’t just any common names, multiple chats I was in had their name, their brand taken even though it was multiple semi-common words stringed together to 19+ characters. [1] and [2] - I can’t find an online source currently on my phone. I can personally vouch for it, but I understand evidence would be appreciated. If anyone can find a source, that would be greatly appreciated.

slmlm 3y ago

Last time I was in Dubai, Telegram was blocked and I needed to setup a proxy to get access. So it is ironic that they are headquartered there. Maybe it is not blocked there now, I do not know.

Thoeu388 3y ago
UAE blocks most voice over IP apps. Something related to telecom monopoly.

darthrupert 3y ago

People should seriously move to Signal.

mojuba 3y ago
From my experience of constantly using both, Signal's UX is inferior unfortunately. On both macOS and iOS Signal feels like a second grade cross-platform app with a clunky Android feel (no ribbon effect, no animations, poor aesthetics). Telegram's UX quality is far superior to any other messenger app that I've ever used. Its social functions are quite nice too, I think Telegram invented some of them before they were copied by the others. The thing with Telegram though is that you can never trust a private company if you are a journalist, dissident or a government official. We don't know whether Pavel Durov is as independent as he wants us to believe he is. The big red flag in the Telegram story is why it's still not banned or censored in Russia. We don't know. But all in all, kudos to those who have built it, they have my respect, Telegram is one of the best pieces of software at least among the messaging apps.
- jamil7 3y ago
  I also use both extensively and I agree, Telegram has the best UX of any messaging app. The desktop app is QT I think so it feels very snappy compared to Signal's electron app. Signal's iOS app is a native Swift/UIKit app and open source however, so I'd encourage you to report any bugs or issues you find: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS
  - darthrupert 3y ago
    It is a very good client indeed, and Signal is not really catching up. Perhaps Matrix's upcoming Element X -client could reach that level of quality.
    - kaba0 3y ago
      Thanks for mentioning Element X. I do like the Matrix protocol, but their former ios app was very buggy.

nubinetwork 3y ago

Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36778211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36778211

solarkraft 3y ago

I have my issues with Telegram, but damn, the thing works. That's more than I can say about basically all the alternatives. The apps are designed and made well and the servers are pretty reliable. Who'd have thought that it's so hard to make a chat app?

hardware2win 3y ago
Discord?
- CryptoBanker 3y ago
  Discord performance is garbage compared to Telegram. Especially on desktop

arein3 3y ago

Telegram is the only popular chat app available on f-droid.

tortoise_in 3y ago

Emm,where they host and there is no encryption by default! Why not use xmpp?

Zash 3y ago
XMPP simply does not have enough Hype, it's just boring old technology that keeps working and getting better over time despite lack of funding and startups.