Edible Apple

This seems far fetched to say the least, but Mashable is reporting that Apple may be a part of Facebook’s upcoming multi-million dollar Series E funding.

According to our tipster, the world’s largest social network will raise a new round of funding in the next few months to fuel its growth and bridge the gap between now and its eventual IPO. The potential amount of the Series E round wasn’t revealed. Facebook has already raised four rounds of funding along with an angel round in its six years of existence, amounting to over half a billion dollars.

It’s the second piece of information from our tipster that really piqued our interest, though. Leading the potential round will be Digital Sky Technologies (an existing investor) and Apple. Yes, Apple. The funding is part of a partnership between the two companies that will eventually result in deep Facebook integration into Apple’s suite of products, including Ping, iTunes, iLife and iWork.

Mashable concedes that they’ve never interacted with this supposed tipster before, so feel free to keep that in mind. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, it was just a week or so ago that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg joined Apple CEO Steve Jobs in his Palo Alto home for dinner and, undoubtedly, some tech related chit chat. Also remember that Facebook and Apple reportedly engaged in prolonged negotiations that would have seen Apple couple it’s new Ping social network with Facebook.

Update: Not surprisingly, Facebook Director of Corporate Communications Larry Yu denied Mashable’s story late on Sunday.