Photo-sharing app Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom had verbally agreed to sell his photo-sharing company to Twitter Inc for 525 dollars million in March, weeks before he accepted a one billion dollars offer from Facebook, it has emerged. According to a report by the New York Times, Twitter executives had handed Systrom a term sheet outlining the details of the proposed deal.

But Systrom later told California state regulators under oath that his company had not received any ‘formal offers or term sheets’ from potential buyers aside from Facebook. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ultimately acquired Instagram after pushing through a cash-and-stock deal just weeks before Facebook''s May initial public offering. Relations between Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have soured since Facebook successfully swooped for the photo service, Fox News reports. Earlier this month Instagram shut off a functionality that allowed Twitter to display Instagram pictures, while Twitter introduced its own photo color-filters to compete with Instagram. -ANI