twitter 300Twitter, naturally, just tweeted its IPO price at $26 per share in anticipation of Thursday’s debut of TWTR on the New York Stock Exchange.

The social media behemoth will raise about $2 billion from its IPO and be valued at around $18 billion. Twitter is offering 70 million shares to the public out of a total of 545 million outstanding shares, in addition to another 10.5 million sold to its underwriters.

When Facebook went public, it set an IPO price of $38 per share and raised $16 billion.

Twitter filed for its IPO in September, then revealed its S-1 form last month. It now employs 2,300 (as of Sept. 30), an increase of more than 1,100 full-timers from this time last year, which Twitter calls an approximate increase of 87 percent. It’s also an increase of more than 2,200 employees since Jan. 1, 2010.

The Twitter cohort in Seattle is certainly growing as well. The team recently moved from its temporary old digs near Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market to a 16,000 square-foot space at the Century Square building in downtown Seattle after about one year in the Emerald City.

Previously on GeekWire: Go get ’em Twitter, but remember your roots: 4 hopes on the eve of the big IPO 

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