Jul 8, 2011 11:11 GMT  ·  By

While plenty of hot internet companies are going public, at generous valuations, Twitter seems to be perfectly happy with being a private company.

The minuscule ad revenue it drives may be part of the reason, or the main reason, but that doesn't seem to be putting off potential investors, as the latest funding round, which is now underway, is valuing Twitter at $8 billion.

In case you've been keeping track, that's double what Twitter was worth in its previous round, back in December.

The startup is said to be raising $400 million from a number of investors, led by DST which will finally be getting a piece of the pie.

According to the New York Times, the talks are ongoing, but are pretty advanced. Reports earlier this week pegged Twitter's valuation at $7 billion.

What's interesting about this round, apart from the surge in valuation, is that DST, the Russian venture capital firm that's been investing in all of the web's rock stars of the moment, Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, just to name the headliners, is finally getting in on the action.

Previous rumors showed DST as being in the lead in the previous round only to bow out and leave Kleiner Perkins, a previous investor, to provide the bulk of the investment.

This is not happening this time around, DST is said to be the one leading the round. Twitter will make a good addition to the great list of companies DST has already invested in.

DST has a knack on betting on the winners, granted, after it became pretty clear that they are winners, but just before their value explores.

This was true almost every single time, when it invested in Facebook at a $10 billion valuation most people said the social network was overvalued. Facebook is now worth about $70 to $80 billion and it's expected to go public at a valuation of about $100 million.