Reddit, the US-based online community backed by internet group Tencent, has received over $250m in series E funding, it revealed in a statement yesterday.
The round was led by venture capital firm Vy Capital and doubled the company’s valuation to $6bn, Reuters reported today. The firm was joined by undisclosed existing and new investors.
Founded in 2005, Reddit runs what is known as the ‘front page of the internet’, an online platform with 50 million daily active users that essentially functions as a collection of forums that cover a diverse range of topics.
The company has increased advertising revenue some 90% in the past year according to Reuters. The funding follows publicity over its members’ central presence in the recent GameStop trading saga as well as a five-second Superbowl ad over the weekend that is the shortest in the event’s history.
Media group Advance Publications’ Condé Nast subsidiary bought Reddit in 2006 and spun it off eight years later in a $50m series B round led by Sam Altman that included venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz and assorted individual investors.
Condé Nast retained a majority stake following a $200m series C round in 2017 featuring Altman, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, investment and financial services group Fidelity, Vy Capital, Coatue Management and Ron Conway, valuing it at $1.8bn post-money.
Tencent invested $150m to lead the company’s $300m series D round in early 2019, participating alongside unnamed existing backers at a $3bn valuation.
