A year after rebuffing a $3 billion takeover proposal from Mark Zuckerberg, Snapchat is in talks to raise money from Alibaba, according to sources.

The valuation being considered is about $10 billion, more than three times what Facebook was willing to pay.

Snapchat, is considering selling a stake to the Chinese internet group as part of a funding round.

The extra billions would make Evan Spiegel - the 24-year-old chief executive who founded Snapchat - look prescient, assuming the details get worked out.

For its part, Alibaba would also get a bigger stake in disappearing-message technology that has all the rage among teens while gaining a wider toe-hold in the US where it is planning an initial public offering in the coming months.

However, insiders said the talks had not progressed far and the possibility of a deal was still remote.

Snapchat’s mobile application enables users to send photos and messages to one another that typically vanish within seconds of being read.

Fanatics, Quixey Alibaba has already shown a penchant for expanding in the US by investing in promising startups, including the Lyft ride-sharing service. The talks with Snapchat are happening through Alibaba’s US-based investment arm, set up last October to focus on “Internet commerce and emerging technologies.”

Bloomberg