Elevation increases its stake in fast-growing Facebook

Speed test: iPhone 4 vs. iPhone 3GS

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Elevation Partners, the private equity firm that includes U2's lead singer Bono as an investor, is trying to make up for some of its past investment flops by increasing its stake in the world's largest social network, Facebook.

According to the technology blog TechCrunch, Elevation bought an additional five million shares in the secondary market -- from early investors or former employees -- for $120 million. That increases Elevation's stake in Facebook to $210 million. See TechCrunch post here.

Putting iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS up against one another for a speed test. Video courtesy of IGN.

Elevation Partners needs a big win for its investors. The firm, which counts former Apple Inc. /quotes/comstock/15*!aapl/quotes/nls/aapl (AAPL 255.62, -12.68, -4.73%) executives Fred Anderson and Avie Tevanian among its investing team, made some big bets on the struggling Palm Inc., starting in October 2007. But even after Palm was sold in a $1.2 billion deal to Hewlett-Packard Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!hpq/quotes/nls/hpq (HPQ 44.21, -1.86, -4.04%) , Elevation made only a slight profit. It invested a total of $460 million in Palm, and at the time of the sale to H-P, Elevation's take was estimated to be worth $485 million, not exactly a big return on its high-risk investment. See H-P buying Palm news.

Facebook, on the other hand, is still growing at an incredible rate, and recently hit 500 million users, further fueling hopes that the still private company might seek to go public sometime soon.