From The Register.

Elevation Partners, the private equity firm backed by bad-backed U2 frontman Bono, has stumped up $120m for just over 0.5 per cent of Facebook.

The deal values the dominant social network at $23bn, and takes Elevation Partners' total stake to 1.5 per cent, having invested $90m at a $9bn valuation last year.

Reports earlier this month claimed Facebook's sales were between $700m and $800m last year, so Bono and friends reckon it's worth about 29 times revenue at the moment. Which is a lot.

The widely-held assumption is that Facebook aims to IPO in the next couple of years, when Elevation Partners and the other private interests who have paid its running costs since 2004 will cash in.

Bono's fund could use a hit. It sank hundreds of millions into Palm's attempted revival, which ended in a fire sale to HP this year…