Its head count is about 90, up from 10 at the start of the pandemic. I feel a bit like that.”Ī year and a half ago, in a column published in the pages of this magazine, I suggested that Substack “feels like a player that might just be on the cusp of the big leagues.” Since then, Substack has raised an additional $65 million in venture capital, bringing its total funding to $82.4 million-led by mega-firm Andreessen Horowitz-and its valuation to a reported $650 million. “It makes me feel like, in the movies, where you see the reporter that goes to the phone booth and calls in her article.
“I really like my Instagram, but it has specific boundaries, and this was something new,” said Smith. But as it morphs from a niche publishing concern into a heavyweight start-up mentioned in the same breath as Twitter and Facebook, its user base is proliferating accordingly. In its early days, Substack primarily catered to a certain set of internet-savvy writers and journalists, lured by the promise of monetizing a direct relationship with their readers.
