Twitter is Now in the Venture Capital Business

Twitter, the company better known for its short status updates, is learning to embrace the long term with venture capital investments.
On Monday, Twitter's name appeared on a list of investors that had collectively poured $80 million into Cyanogen, a startup founded in 2009 that is building a mobile operating system to rival Android and iOS. This marks the inaugural investment for Twitter Ventures, the VC arm of Twitter that has been kept mostly under wraps until now.
Twitter declined official comment on its VC activity. A source close to the company confirmed this was indeed the debut investment. Twitter Ventures is said to be operating with a "small amount" of the company's overall capital, according to the source, with plans to back businesses that have strategic benefits to Twitter, or that are simply interesting to its executives.