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Reddit will double the number of employees it has over the course of this year to around 1,400 after raising $250 million in a new funding round, the company has announced. Reddit currently has around 700 employees globally. Over 600 are based in the US, according to CNBC, where it has offices in San Francisco, New York, LA, and Chicago.
The announcement of the new funding round comes as the site’s r/WallStreetBets subreddit gained widespread attention for its role in increasing the share prices of GameStop, AMC, and other companies. Redditors organized to purchase shares in certain companies en-masse, turbocharging their stock prices at the expense of short-selling hedge funds. As of last week the Securities and Exchange commission is reportedly investigating whether misinformation posted on social media could have violated securities laws.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman tells The Wall Street Journal that the company isn’t planning on “materially changing” 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. On Sunday, Reddit said that it spent its entire marketing budget on a single 5-second Super Bowl ad celebrating its role in the GameStop stocks saga. Last year Reddit acquired Dubsmash, a “short-form video social platform” whose video creation tools it plans to integrate into its own platform.
Reddit’s valuation doubled to $6 billion as a result of the new funding, according to the WSJ. Last quarter, the company’s direct advertising revenue was up 90 percent compared to the same period a year earlier, Reddit says.
As of December, Reddit boasted 52 million daily active users, For comparison, Facebook has around 1.85 billion daily users, Snapchat’s parent company Snap has 265 million daily active users, and Twitter recent said it averages 187 million.
