Redditis a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website, recently including livestream content through Reddit Public Access Network.
Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "communities" or "subreddits", which cover a variety of topics such as news, politics, science, movies, video games, music, books, sports, fitness, cooking, pets, and image-sharing. Submissions with more up-votes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough up-votes, ultimately on the site's front page. Despite strict rules prohibiting harassment, Reddit's administrators spend considerable resources on moderating the site.
As of February 2021, Reddit ranks as the 18th-most-visited website in the world and 7th most-visited website in the US, according to Alexa Internet. About 42-49.3% of its user base comes from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom at 7.9-8.2% and Canada at 5.2-7.8%.
Reddit was founded by University of Virginia roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, and Aaron Swartz in 2005. Condé Nast Publications acquired the site in October 2006. In 2011, Reddit became an independent subsidiary of Condé Nast's parent company, Advance Publications. In October 2014, Reddit raised $50 million in a funding round led by Sam Altman and including investors Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Ron Conway, Snoop Dogg, and Jared Leto. Their investment valued the company at $500 million then. In July 2017, Reddit raised $200 million for a $1.8 billion valuation, with Advance Publications remaining the majority stakeholder. In February 2019, a $300 million funding round led by Tencent brought the company's valuation to $3 billion.
