Pinterest snags $100M investment

One of the hottest social networks on the Web, Pinterest, just secured some significant funding.

Japanese online marketplace Rakuten will lead a $100 million investment into Pinterest, which lets users pin items such as photos and share them with others.

The money would go toward bolstering Pinterest's current services as well as help the site expand to Japan and other countries.

"While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining," says Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani in a statement. "We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest's vision and Rakuten's model for e-commerce."

According to All Things D, the latest injection of funding would value Pinterest at $1.5 billion.

Pinterest's new funding follows concerns that users had started to lose interest in the site. As USA TODAY reported last month, some market research firms suggested user growth was starting to taper off.