Substack has landed a nine-digit investment that will further its commitment to independent creator content. The newsletter platform has announced a $100 million Series C funding round that will be used to develop and upgrade the platform’s suite of features.
Investors at BOND and The Chernin Group led the round, which will install BOND partner Mood Rowghani on the Substack board. Other participants included Andreessen Horowitz, LeBron James’ agent Rich Paul, and SKIMS Co-Founder Jens Grede.
Substack launched in 2017, establishing itself as one of the first platforms to cater to the growing community of newsletter writers. In the eight years since, the company led by Co-Founders Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best, and Jairaj Sethi has built out a full complement of features, transforming Substack into a multimedia hub replete with revenue streams.
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Notable improvements have included a native video player and tools for marketers. A recent update heightened Substack’s similarities to Twitch and TikTok by bringing more discovery to live videos.
Those enhancements have enabled multiple forms of monetization on Substack, encouraging opportunistic creators to join the platform. Earlier this year, Substack announced that it has more than five million paying subscribers across its newsletter library.
In a blog post announcing the Series C round, Substack pledged to continue uplifting its base of independent newsletter publishers. “We’ll invest in better tools, broader reach, and deeper support for the writers and creators driving Substack’s ecosystem,” reads the post. “Already, hundreds of millions of dollars flow from audiences to creators there every year. Millions use the app weekly, and pay for the work they discover. But this is just the beginning.”
That investment in creators is well-timed. Newsletter platforms are drawing widespread interest from VC firms, with Substack rivals like beehiiv also raising major funding rounds. Substack has deployed its capital to woo creators away from competitors, as it did with the $20 million fund that rewarded newsletter authors who brought their built-in audiences to the platform. McKenzie, Best, and Sethi are now set up to continue those efforts — and Substack seems to be just getting started.
