Reddit Valued At $10B, Founder Alexis Ohanian Shares Thoughts On Community

Social news platform Reddit is now valued at $10 billion in its latest funding round. Here are thoughts from the current company’s management and founder Alexis Ohanian.

What Happened: Reddit announced a new round of funding valuing the company at $10 billion.

“As we shared earlier this year when Reddit raised its Series E round of funding, we are making strategic investments to grow Reddit and our business, including expanding internationally, innovating new ways to foster community and bolstering our advertising offerings and capabilities,” the company said in a blog post.

The company hired its first chief financial officer and expanded to the UK, Canada and Australia. Reddit said more countries are coming.

“This year Reddit marked its first $100 million advertising revenue quarter (Q2 2021), representing a 192% increase compared to the same period last year," the company stated.

Reddit said it will raise $700 million in its new Series F funding led by Fidelity Management and existing investors.

“We are committed to our mission of providing community and belonging to everyone and look forward to continuing on our journey with the support of our users, employees, clients and investors.”

Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian called the new funding “a great milestone” on CNBC Friday.

“The Reddit community continues to prove the point, community is one of the strongest assets a company can have,” he said

When asked about the potential valuation of Reddit in the future, Ohanian said the sky is the limit.

In 2006, Reddit was sold for $10 million to Condé Nast, a subsidiary of Advance Publications, which is now a majority owner of the company. Ohanian, who is the founder of Seven Seven Six, stayed on to lead Reddit for three years after the sale. Ohanian stepped down from Reddit’s board of directors last year.

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Founder Alexis Ohanian On Reddit: Reddit was founded by University of Virginia roommates Alexis Ohanian, Aaron Swartz and Steve Huffman.

“This whole website is just an experiment to see what happens if a bunch of people are free to voice their opinions online,” Ohanian said in a 2004 video describing Reddit that he shared Friday.

Ohanian shared his thoughts on the spread of misinformation online and the rise of value for communities such as Reddit and others.

“We’re at a point now where at the very least you can’t get any less trust or faith in these institutions,” he noted.

Discussions on Reddit include actual scientists in the science communities talking intelligently, Ohanian said.

Ohanian called the range of information shared online “a spectrum” with good and bad information presented.

Ohanian said companies will be "born from the bottom up with the community," providing a better connection to the user than with a large institution, while singling out SubStack.