New round of financing Medium completed

Medium , a social media journalism platform launched in August 2012 by Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, has passed a new round of external funding.



In January 2014, the platform attracted external funding for the first time: shares in a startup were acquired by two funds — the organizer of the round, Greylock Partners and Google Ventures — and several private investors, including Ron Conway. The total investment was $ 25 million . The startup did not need new investors, since Evan Williams after a successful IPO of Twitter became a billionaire.



However, attracting external financing, in his own words, was a signal to the market that the company has a coherent business model and long-term strategy. It was also a way to attract new managers, because by 2014 Medium co-founders The Obvious Corporation, Biz Stone and Jason Goldman, had left Medium for their projects. Managing partners of Greylock Partners David See and Josh Elman joined the board of directors of the company.



According to Andy Doyle, the platform raised $ 57 million. The round was headed by a venture fund founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz - Andreessen Horowitz with significant contributions from Google Ventures and Greylock Partners, who participated in Series A , as well as with Obvious Ventures, The Chernin Group and some business angels previous round. The founder of the platform Evan Williams, who still remains its main shareholder, did not fail to participate in this round.

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More than 20,000 people write to Medium every week, and their words are read and discussed by millions of others. At the moment, the monthly audience of Medium is more than 17 million people. According to Biz Stone, Medium is an attempt at an evolutionary leap in publishing. Medium equally publishes entire publications, professional authors and ordinary users. Medium at various times published a variety of famous people, ranging from the President of the United States and ending with Pavel Durov.



In many ways, the platform is a role model for many resources, in terms of typographic design and identity. In connection with the successful completion of the next round of investments, on October 7, the company intends to announce several new opportunities for the platform and partnership programs.