Facebook has been valued at $10 billion (£6.3 billion) after Russian company Digital Sky Technologies (DST) bought a 1.96 per cent equity stake in the social network for $200 million.

DST also plans to offer to buy at least $100 million worth of common stock from current Facebook shareholders.

"A number of firms approached us, but DST stood out because of the global perspective they bring - backed up by the impressive growth and financial achievements of their internet investments," said Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook.

The sale of the stake came after Microsoft paid $240 million for its own stake in Facebook in 2007, valuing the site at $15 billion at the time.

DST owns a number of large internet properties, including Mail.ru, Forticom and vKontakte, with its sites estimated to represent about 70 per cent of all page views made by Russian-speaking web users.

It has offices in Moscow and London and reaches more than 350 million internet users overall.

Seven in ten Facebook users are based outside of the US and the social network has been translated into over 40 languages to date.