Reddit raises $250 million in funding, valuation doubles to $6 billion

Reddit has raised $250 million in Series E funding from existing and new investors, amid renewed attention for the role in one of its communities -- wallstreetbets -- in the recent US stock market frenzy.

The funding round, led by venture capital firm Vy Capital, saw Reddit’s valuation double to $6 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. Other Reddit investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Tencent.

The “social news website”, which claims to have more than 50 million daily active users, plans to use the funds raised to make strategic investments in areas such as video, advertising, consumer products and international expansion. The proceeds will also be used to double its employee headcount this year, the company said.


In December, Reddit had acquired short-video platform Dubsmash to provide its users access to latter's editing and short-video creation tools.

The company said it has also scaled up its advertising business, with direct advertising revenue increasing 90% in the last quarter from the year-ago period.

"We continue to invest in building and improving the ways people on Reddit connect — whether that’s traditionally through text-based discussions or through video or live streaming," the company said in a blogpost.

Last month, several companies including video game retailer GameStop and cinema operator AMC Entertainment saw wild fluctuations in their stock prices, as several thousand amateur traders on Reddit's WallStreetBets community egged one another to buy stocks in order to squeeze some of the hedge funds that had bet these stocks would fall.

Also read: How Young India got hooked on to the GameStop story