Reddit, on Monday, has announced that it has raised more than $250M (approx €206.5M) in Series E funding from existing and new investors. “We decided that now was the right opportunity to make strategic investments in Reddit including video, advertising, consumer products, and expanding into international markets,” mentions the company in an official blog post.
According to the Wall Street Journal, this funding pushes the network’s valuation to $6B (nearly €5B).
Gamestop Saga & Superbowl Ad
This fundraising comes just days after the company was all over the news after its subreddit r/WallStreetBets helped pump the share prices of GameStop. “Time and again, we have seen the power of community and connection alongside the growth and evolution of those communities and the humans behind them,” says the company.
Although the blog post didn’t mention anything regarding the GameStop incident, it seems like the company made an indirect reference to it via its much-talked-about five-second Super Bowl ad. “One thing we learned from our communities last week is that underdogs can accomplish just about anything when they come together around a common idea.”
“Powerful things happen when people rally around something they really care about. And there’s a place for that. It’s called Reddit,” it says.
Sweet 16
According to the blog post, Reddit has turned 16. It has raised a total of around $800M (€660.8M) to date, which included the $300M (approx €248M) it raised at a $3B (€2.5B) valuation in 2019.
“We have come a long way in recent years to focus more on the needs of the hundreds of thousands of communities that make up Reddit and on creating feature-rich, safe, engaging, spaces for meaningful conversations for our 50+ million daily users. We have also continued to scale our advertising business, which is now poised to deliver performance and engagement in addition to brand awareness. Advertisers have responded favourably to our efforts and the authenticity of community on Reddit, with direct advertising revenue increasing 90 per cent in the last quarter, year-over-year,” says the company.
It also mentions about acquiring the short-form video platform Dubsmash in December 2020. Reddit is also planning to double the number of its employees this year.
