Imgur, the photo-sharing service well known for its use among Redditors, has raised $40 million in a new round of Series A funding.
Led by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, it’s longtime pal Reddit was also involved, investing “a small amount,” reports The New York Times.
While “Imager” is profitable, Founder and CEO Alan Schaaf explains why the cash was necessary:
“Being bootstrapped is great. You own 100 percent of it. But the downside is that you aren’t able to move as fast as you want.”
The name of the game is scale, and the service will hire more engineers, sales staff and move over to a larger office.
Schaaf says it also plans on building new mobile applications, which first hit Android in July 2013, and iOS just one month later.
“We’ve talked with over a dozen VCs and angel investors over the years. But we’ve never clicked with any of them until Andreessen. During our initial meeting, we were bouncing ideas around about where Imgur could go.”
General partner at Andreessen Lars Dalgaard, says the company has been interested in investing in Imgur for several years, and views it as a “future-forward looking media and entertainment company.”
Last month, Imgur hired ROFLCon founder Tim Hwang to head up a Special Initiatives division focused around events and partnerships.
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