Elevation Partners Investment Values Facebook at $23 Billion

Elevation Partners acquired $120 million in Facebook stock from private shareholders, which would value the world's largest social networking Internet company at $23 billion, according to a report from Thompson Reuters Tuesday.

This move by Elevation marks the second round off investment by the private equity firm through secondary markets, giving it a 1.5 percent stake in Facebook.

According to reports earlier this month, Facebook generated between $700 million and $800 million in revenue in 2009, and has nearly 500 million users. Investors have eagerly been anticipating a future initial public offering in the future.

The people familiar with the matter told Reuters that the latest purchase of Facebook shares by Elevation came through a series of transactions throughout the past couple of months.

In April, the Internet giant, which has come to rival popular sites like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), said that it had restricted its employees from selling their shares in the company outside of specifically mandated periods of time. According to Reuters, the company is currently undergoing one of those time periods.

Elevation had previously purchased $90 million worth of Facebook shares in November based on a $9 billion company valuation.

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