The Social Network – which depicts the genius, passion and betrayal that allegedly saturated the early days of Facebook – hit the big screen last month, taking $23m in North America in its first weekend. But it is the venture capitalists behind the social networking phenomenon that stand to make a killing when the website goes public.

Valuations for the 500 million-member network, founded by teenager Mark Zuckerberg while he was still at Harvard University, gyrate from the $25bn mentioned in the film to $34bn talked up by the optimists.