Popular social media website Reddit announced that it raised $50 million in the latest round of funding. The funding will help add to its staff to a total of 60, expand its mobile application and improve relationships with third-party developers.
The round of fundraising was led by Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, with assistance from Alfred Lin of Sequoia Capital and Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors include Peter Thiel, Ron Conway, Paul Buchheit, Jared Leto, Jessica Livingston, Mariam Naficy, Josh Kushner and rapper Snoop Dogg
Another interesting element of the newest funds is that the company wants to give 10 percent back to the community’s users. The latest proposal would permit the social network’s users to purchase shares in the company, though intricate details have yet to be figured out and released.
Yishan Wong, CEO of Reddit, wrote in a blog post late Tuesday evening that the social network is attempting to reward the community for its dedication, loyalty and usage. The fine details of allowing users to purchase shares are still being worked out, but one proposal is being discussed by the leadership and userbase: a cryptocurrency.
The so-called front page of the Internet, which currently maintains a valuation of half a billion dollars and generates five billion monthly page views per month, noted that it’s going to unveil more specifics in the near future.
“CAVEAT: KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS PLAN COULD TOTALLY FAIL,” Wong wrote. “We are thinking about creating a cryptocurrency and making it exchangeable (backed) by those shares of reddit, and then distributing the currency to the community. The investors have explicitly agreed to this in their investment terms.”
Wong added that there are about 30 or so steps the company would need to take in order to make the proposal come to fruition. With that being said, he said that the consultation he had with a former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawyer found there would be nothing illegal about this plan.
In the meantime, Reddit continues to downplay the additional funds. Wong explained that soon after the social network received the money, Altman walked into the office and provided him with a 100 trillion dollar Zimbabwean note to show that money and value are different.
“Money can become worthless very quickly, value is something that is built over time through hard work,” Wong stated.
Reddit was founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The social network allows registered users to submit content, insert direct links to content and vote up or down to organize posts and determine their place on the site’s subreddit pages. In recent years, celebrities, public officials, regular people and well-known individuals have participated in Reddit’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) events, which allow users to ask the said persons questions directly.
