A Reddit logo displayed on a smartphone with stock prices in the background.
Omar Marques | LightRocket | Getty Images
Reddit, which was at the heart of a recent social media-driven retail business, said Monday it raised more than $ 250 million in a new round of funding that doubled its valuation to $ 6 billion.
The social media company was valued at $ 3 billion after a funding round in February 2019.
“We decided this was the right opportunity to make strategic investments in Reddit, including video, advertising, consumer products and expansion into international markets,” the company said in a blog post.
Steve Huffman, Reddit’s Chief Executive Officer, told The Wall Street Journal that it’s a good market for fundraising.
“Valuations are very high right now. It never hurts to raise money if there is the opportunity to do so and Reddit had a strong year,” Huffman said according to the WSJ report.
Reddit, which has more than 50 million active users daily, said in the blog post that ad revenues were up 90% in the last quarter from a year earlier.
Video game retailer GameStop and other companies, including movie theater operator AMC Entertainment, have seen wild swings in their stocks over the past two weeks as amateur investors on forums like Reddit’s WallStreetBets teamed up to offer stocks that some US funds had bet against.
The meeting has caught the attention of regulators, although US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday it was too early to say whether new policies or regulations were needed to deal with the volatility.