Image: Pixinooo /Depositphotos
The self-declared ‘front page of the internet’ is setting up an office in Dublin after securing major Chinese funding.
About two years ago, the first rumours surrounding the possibility that Reddit would open a Dublin office began circulating. These came after a job was posted online advertising a position in Dublin for trust and safety specialists/policy enforcement, but since then all has remained quiet.
According to AFP (via Phys.org), the company has now confirmed the opening of a Reddit office in Dublin later this year, marking its first outside of the US. In a brief statement, the company said: “Reddit is currently planning to open an office in Dublin in 2019 and we are actively recruiting to build out our team.”
Details of where the new office will be and how large it is haven’t been made public yet, but the previously advertised roles from 2017 remain, albeit with a significantly more marketing-friendly name: ‘anti-evil operations specialist’. Their job would be to moderate the enormous streams of content posted to the website, a role that has recently been shown to be a seriously challenging task at other social media outlets.
The announcement follows one of the major milestones in Reddit’s history after it secured $300m in Series D funding led by the Chinese giant Tencent, with participation from American venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz and investment funds Fidelity and Sequoia. Following the funding announcement, Reddit is now valued at $3bn, up from $1.8bn in 2017.
According to CNBC, the company brought in an estimated $100m in revenue last year from its 330m monthly users due to its appeal with the holy grail for advertisers: those aged between the ages of 18 and 24. However, the decision by Tencent to invest in the platform raised eyebrows, considering Reddit is banned in China.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has said that Tencent’s interest in Reddit is partly due to it having numerous gaming communities in multiple boards on the site, known as subreddits. Tencent owns a 40pc stake in Epic Games, the company behind the smash hit Fortnite.
The Reddit homepage. Image: Pixinooo/Depositphotos
