Photo and video messaging app Snapchat is valuing itself at $19 billion in its latest funding round and looks to raise $500 million for expansion in 2015, according to Bloomberg.

The valuation would be double last year's funding round when Yahoo and three other investment firms raised $486 million at a valuation of $10 billion.

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Snapchat has been growing at a rapid rate since its inception in 2011. The self-destructive messaging service has gained a lot of support from younger adopters, making its users more lucrative than typical social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

CEO Evan Spiegel has been looking to make Snapchat a media centric service with music, film and other potential features that were leaked in the Sony Pictures hack in late-2014. It's not clear if Snapchat will continue to work on the new features.

Having these music, news and media hubs would make Snapchat a less one dimensional app, and could create new ways to listen and buy music, or read the news.

Snapchat's valuation makes it the third most valuable tech firm not publicly traded on the stock market, behind Uber at $41 billion and Xiaomi at $46 billion.

The messaging app's valuation puts it at the same price as WhatsApp when it was acquired by Facebook in 2014,. But we can't see Snapchat shutting its doors for an acquisition any time soon, considering Facebook tried a $3 billion acquisition in 2013.

Tagssnapchat, messaging app, Evan Spiegel