Reddit will double the number of employees it has during this year to about 1,400 after raising $ 250 million in a new round of financing, the company announced. Reddit currently has about 700 employees worldwide. According to more than 600, they are based in the US CNBC, where it has offices in San Francisco, New York, LA and Chicago.
The announcement of the new round of financing comes when the subreddit of the website r / WallStreetBets gets wide attention for its role in raising the share prices of GameStop, AMC and other companies. Redditors have organized to mass-acquire shares in certain companies and turbo-charge their share prices at the expense of hedge funds that have sold short. The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating allegations that incorrect information posted on social media could have violated securities laws.
Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, tells The Wall Street Journal that the company does not intend to “substantially change” its strategy as a result of the funding round. The company says it plans to use the money to invest in video, advertising, consumer products and international expansion. Reddit said Sunday that it has spent its entire marketing budget on a single 5-second Super Bowl ad to celebrate its role in the GameStop stock saga. Last year, Reddit acquired Dubsmash, a ‘short-form social video platform’ whose video creation tools are planned to be integrated into its own platform.
Reddit’s valuation has doubled to $ 6 billion due to the new financing, according to the WSJ. Last quarter, the company’s direct advertising revenue increased by 90 percent compared to the same period a year earlier, Reddit said.
As of December, Reddit boasted 52 million daily active users. By comparison, Facebook has about 1.85 billion users daily, Snapchat’s parent company Snap has 265 million daily active users, and Twitter recently said it averages 187 million.