Reddit to double its workforce after raising $250M

Reddit announced plans to grow its workforce by 100% over the course of this year to around 1,400 after the company raised $250 million in a new funding round.

Reddit, which was at the center of a recent stock market frenzy, currently has around 700 employees globally with over 600 based in its San Francisco, New York, LA, and Chicago offices in the United States.

The startup also boasted around 52 million daily active users in December 2020, as reported by The Verge.

The company announced on Monday that it had raised $250 million in its Series E round of financing, which doubled Reddit’s valuation to $6 billion, according to the New York Times. This round included financing from both existing and new investors.

It is important to note that this will be Reddit’s 16th year of operation. According to reports by Tech Crunch, the startup has raised around $800 million till date, including a Tencent-led $300 million Series D in February, 2019.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman also explained that the company is not planning to materially change its strategy, but instead hopes to invest more in video, advertising, consumer products, and international expansion.

"We have also continued to scale our Advertising business, which is now poised to deliver performance and engagement in addition to brand awareness. Advertisers have responded favorably to our efforts and the authenticity of community on Reddit, with direct advertising revenue increasing 90 percent in the last quarter, year-over-year," the company also mentioned in a recent blog post.

While the startup has gained a lot of popularity during the GameStop mania, it would be interesting to follow how the startup evolves its human resource and advertisement strategy in the future to create feature-rich, safe and engaging spaces for meaningful conversations for its 50+ million daily user.