The company has shot up in value by nearly 70pc since 2021.
Substack has raised $100m in a Series C funding round. According to the company, the funding will go towards strengthening protections for writers in a bid to promote creative freedom.
The round was led by investment firm Bond and The Chernin Group with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Rich Paul, the CEO and founder of Klutch Sports Group and Jens Grede, the CEO and co-founder of Skims.
According to some reports, the funding round values Substack at $1.1bn – nearly 70pc up from its 2021 valuation of $650m. Mood Rowghani, a partner at Bond, will be joining the Substack board.
Founded in 2017, Substack is a multimedia platform for creators, who can charge a fee from their audience. The platform earns by taking a 10pc cut from the creators’ revenue.
Substack has been fast growing. Earlier this year, the platform announced that it reached five million paid subscribers – just four months after it reached four million.
In 2022, the company launched the Substack app, which works similar to a social media platform, allowing users to interact with creators, watch live video and share posts.
The latest funding, the company says, is their chance to “get behind” creators on the platform.
In January, Substack announced that it going to significantly expand its legal protection programme for independent journalists and creators.
It first announced the Substack Defender programme back in 2020 to provide free-of-charge advice to creators, as well as pre-publication legal review of individual stories and responses to cease-and-desist letters.
With the latest funding, the company also wants to further develop the Substack app, which it says is “fun and rewarding without melting your brain”.
“We’ll invest in better tools, broader reach and deeper support for the writers and creators driving Substack’s ecosystem,” read the blog written by co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi.
Substack’s user base is varied, from long-established and well-renowned writers such as Margaret Atwood, as well as newcomers, freelance journalists and independent news outlets.
In 2024, the platform got into hot water after reports surfaced that Substack allowed bigoted content to be shared and monetised.
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