What you need to know:

• Reddit ended all programmatic ads at the end of April 2021, has now reported a 192 per cent ad revenue rise.
• Reddit is also diversifying its products, looking to build video and audio communities.
• The platform is raising $700m and is valued at $10bn.

Reddit says its advertising revenue skyrocketed in the second quarter of 2021 – after it ended programmatic advertising and became a walled garden.

The platform quietly removed the last programmatically traded ads on April 30, instead urging advertisers to sign up to its own ad platforms. Programmatic ads are those sold through third-party exchanges like Pubmatic or OpenX.

In a new blog post, Reddit has revealed more about its plans, adding it made $100 million in advertising revenue in a single quarter for the first time in the platform’s history.

“This year Reddit marked its first $100 million advertising revenue quarter (Q2 2021), representing a 192 percent increase compared to the same period last year,” Reddit said.

“And, we are investing in our products and diversifying the Reddit experience to include new ways for communities to connect through video and audio.”

It also announced it had made “a great deal of progress on all fronts”, hiring its first Chief Financial Officer and expanding to Australia, Canada and the UK.

Reddit added it planned to raise $700m in investor funding, and says it has a valuation of over $10bn. In an interview with the New York Times overnight, Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman said the company had plans to go public. “All good companies should go public when they can,” he said.

More than 50 million people visit Reddit each day.