What Do Snoop Dogg, Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel Have in Common? Reddit, Yâall.
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Snoop Dogg. Snoop Doggy Dogg. Snoop Lion. DJ Snoopadelic. Snoopzilla. Whatever you call Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr., you can now also call the pot-puffing convicted felon and former pimp co-owner of Reddit.
The 42-year-old rap icon recently threw some serious paper at the viral news hub as part of a $50 million injection of venture capital. The exact amount Snoop pitched in isnât public, but it probably wasnât chump change.
Fundraising for reddit http://t.co/gQxG0R5qt6
â reddit (@reddit) September 30, 2014Related: 50 Cent Betting Heart-Monitoring Headphones Will Be a Hit
Reddit, a user-generated social platform, which loftily bills itself as âthe front page of the internet,â spilled the big money news on its blog yesterday. The Doggfatherâs name appears (as plain, old Snoop Dogg, not as his latest reggae persona Snoop Lion) second to last in the announcementâs extended namedrop of investors, which includes some of Silicon Valleyâs most famous and deepest pocketed tech elite. Among them are lead funder Sam Altman, president of the seed-stage venture capital firm Y Combinator (which provided Reddit its initial funding nine years ago), Peter Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of PayPal, Marc Andreessen, outspoken venture capitalist and Internet pioneer, Mariam Naficy, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Minted.com, Ron Conway, veteran âsuper angelâ investor and Paul Buchheit, Xoogler and Gmail creator.
Reddit CEO Yishan Wong, formerly of PayPal and Facebook, also kicked in on the massive round, as did Academy Award-winning TV/film/rock god and budding tech investor Jared Leto. This isnât the first time Snoop and Leto staked claims in the same digital venture. A week ago, the millionaire âcelebpreneursâ both invested in a new Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz backed zero-commission stock trading app called Robinhood.
Related: 3 Celebs Jumping on the Bitcoin Bandwagoin (and One Who Say Sheâs an âIdiotâ for Missing It)
Of course thereâs a bleeding edge Bitcoin angle to Redditâs star-studded payday. The popular San Francisco-based startup, known for its juicy, celebrity tell-all âAsk Me Anythingâ (AMA) threads, partnered with crypto-payment processor Coinbase last year to accept Bitcoin for âReddit Goldâ purchases. Now, per Wongâs somewhat vague comment on the companyâs blog yesterday, Reddit is âthinking about creating a cryptocurrency and making it exchangeable (backed) by those shares of reddit, and then distributing the currency to the community.â According to CoinDesk, Reddit would allot 10 percent of the total raised in the round to build a digital currency to âgive backâ to its thriving redditor community, once home to a Bitcoin tip-funded virtual strip club subreddit called r/GirlsGoneBitcoin.
Related: Reddit Founder on Startup Success: Identify a Genuine Need and Fill It
Donât get too excited for a possible Redditcoin or a SnoopDogecoin (or whatever) yet. A bold, all-caps caveat at the top of Wongâs comment reads: âKEEP IN MIND THAT THIS PLAN COULD TOTALLY FAIL.â
By proxy, Redditâs early stage plan boosts Snoopâs barely budding crypto cred. The hip hop superstar whipped up a stir in the Bitcoin community last December when he tweeted that his next record would be âavailable in Bitcoin and delivered by drone.â Coinbase chomped at the tweet, offering to hook him up. Snoop tweeted back, expressing that heâd like to âmake it happen.â It hasnât yet. Coinbase told Entrepreneur.com today that there is no deal in place at the moment. Entrepreneur-rapper Curtis â50 Centâ Jackson beat Snoop to it last June with an assist from BitPay, allowing his fans to buy his latest album with the cryptocash.
@coinbase dm your info. I want to make it happen.
â Snoop Dogg (@SnoopDogg) December 9, 2013Related: Holy Cow: Bill Gates Plays Secret Santa in Reddit Christmas Miracle
Snoop Dogg. Snoop Doggy Dogg. Snoop Lion. DJ Snoopadelic. Snoopzilla. Whatever you call Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr., you can now also call the pot-puffing convicted felon and former pimp co-owner of Reddit.
The 42-year-old rap icon recently threw some serious paper at the viral news hub as part of a $50 million injection of venture capital. The exact amount Snoop pitched in isnât public, but it probably wasnât chump change.
Fundraising for reddit http://t.co/gQxG0R5qt6
â reddit (@reddit) September 30, 2014