Fresh Off GameStop Mania, Reddit raises $ 250 million in new funding

Two weeks after mad stock users catapulted Reddit to the attention of the global mainstream, the 16-year-old social media company raised $ 250 million in new funding.

The money would double the company’s valuation to $ 6 billion. Reddit plans to use the money to double its workforce and increase its focus on video, a move that closely followed its December acquisition of Dubsmash, a competitor to TikTok. The company did not disclose to investors during its latest Series E in a blog post announcing the deal.

Reddit was founded in 2005 and its cheesy, text-based message boards have never garnered the same attention as other social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Snapchat. That changed in January when a Reddit forum, WallStreetBets, orchestrated an attack on several hedge funds, buying up shares of GameStop.

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and forcing institutions to lose millions of dollars. The group has skyrocketed from around 1 million to over 8 million in about a week.

Growth occurs across the entire site. Reddit says it now has 52 million daily users, a 44% increase from a year ago.

Reddit was previously valued at $ 3 billion in 2019 during a $ 300 million Series D from Tencent, Sequioa and other investors.