Telegram closed its pre-sale ICO at record-breaking numbers. The team sent a document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in which they claim that they have generated $850 million, so far. The SAFT backed ICO was aimed at major venture capital firms and other cryptocurrency whales. For putting money in early, these investors will receive discounts on the platform’s GRAM tokens. The public token sale is set for March and the team anticipates it will raise another $600 million more. However, that number may grow after the immediate success of the Telegram pre-sale.

The messaging app was founded by Russian entrepreneurs Pavel and Nikolai Durov who banked on their social media company VKontakte. Telegram runs very similarly to WhatsApp but is said to be more secure. Its current business model currently makes no revenue, as Pavel Durov currently pays for all the app’s expenses via the $300 million made from their first social media company. The Telegram website reads:

“Pavel Durov, who shares our vision, supplied Telegram with a generous donation, so we have quite enough money for the time being. If Telegram runs out, we will introduce non-essential paid options to support the infrastructure and finance developer salaries. But making profits will never be an end-goal for Telegram.”

With a growing user base, currently over 180 million users, eventually the company was going to run out of funds and this is how the company chose to raise its funds. The Form D they filed with the SEC indicates that Telegram intends to use its proceeds for the development of the TON blockchain, the maintenance and continued development of the Telegram messaging app and the other purposes described within the offering material given to its investors.