Snapchat CEO and Co-founder Evan Spiegel, 23, has refused Mark Zuckerberg's offer of $3 billion to buy Snapchat.

Snapchat is a photo messaging app that sends pictures and videos called "Snaps" that disappear after a few seconds. The application is a big hit among teenagers and young adults. It processes over 400 million snaps per day. The fleeting attribute of Snapchats made it a popular medium for silly pictures and videos that you don't want to preserve forever.

Snapchat is believed to value at $800 million at the time of its last funding in June. Zuckerberg's offer was triple its worth. Spiegel's decision to turn down the offer was a big surprise.

Spiegel and Murphy also turned down a $200 million investment from Tencent Holdings. If Snapchat had accepted the investment offer, it would have valued at $4 billion.

The popular app started only as a project for one of Spiegel's classes at Stanford University. It was focused mainly on the technical aspects rather than the branding. It has a mascot named Ghostface Chillah, which was inspired by Ghostface Killah of the hip hop group, Wu-Tang clan.

The app had been popular since May 2012 with 25 images being sent per second. By November 2012, users had shared over one billion photos on the Snapchat iOS app. Also in the same month, Snapchat was released in Android.

In June 2013, Snapchat released an application called Snapkidz made for users below 13 years old.

Forbes previously reported that Snapchat photos do not actually disappear. However, Snapchat's own documentation shows that while the server retains a log of about 200 snaps, no actual content is stored. Even the files that are not viewed by the recipient expire in 30 days.