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The Reddit Files
Confirmed

Tencent Leads $150M of Reddit's $300M Funding Round

In February 2019, Chinese tech company Tencent put $150 million into a $300 million Reddit Series D round at a $3 billion post-money valuation. The investment drew a user protest on Reddit over fears of Chinese-style censorship.

Feb 5, 2019
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Whose side it served: Neither party

A commercial investment; the protest came from users across the spectrum concerned about Chinese censorship.

What the record shows

TechCrunch first reported that Tencent was 'kicking in the first $150 million' of a round valued at a $2.7 billion pre-money valuation, and later updated that Reddit raised $150 million from Tencent and $150 million from existing investors at a $3 billion post-money valuation. Reddit and Tencent declined to comment at the time, and the report gave no ownership percentage or governance rights for Tencent. AFP reported that users flooded the site with Winnie the Pooh images, a character censored in China because bloggers used it to mock Xi Jinping. A post near the top of the home page referenced the '$150 million investment from Chinese Censorship company Tencent.'

In their words

“please welcome our leader President Xi”— Protest post on Reddit's front page, as reported by AFP · source
The other side

Tencent holds minority stakes in many Western tech and gaming companies, and analysts at the time described the deal as a financial bet rather than a political one; later filings show the stake did not carry control.

Sources

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