Turns out there's a lot of money in reliable answers to the internet's questions
How much is credible, factual, internet-based information worth?
A lot, evidently.
Question-and-answer website Quora has raised a fresh round of $85 million dollars in its quest to become the go-to resource for people with questions — and people with answers.
The round values the company at roughly $1.8 billion, according to a company spokesperson (who said that the valuation had roughly doubled from its previous valuation of $900 million).
Quora launched privately in 2009 but and quickly drew buzz in the tech community in part because it was started by two well-respected early Facebook employees. The website opened to the public in 2010, serving as something of a high-end message board where people can ask questions and get solid answers.
The site currently serves 190 million unique visitors a month, according to a blot post from Sam Altman, president of YCombinator.
YCombinator's YContinuity venture fund led the round along with Collaborative Fund.
Altman pointed to the website's quality and personalization as why he believes it's worth the hype — and the notion that it could contain all human knowledge.
"The combination of their ever-improving machine learning and the increasing amount of knowledge shared means the product gets better as it gets bigger. The content I see from Quora constantly gets more personalized for me," Altman wrote. "I also believe they have some of the highest-quality user-generated content on the internet, and a real chance at being one of the few places that contain all human knowledge."
About a year ago Quora began introducing advertising as a way of making money. Details about its business side are scant, but CEO Adam D'Angelo told VentureBeat that the company is planning to go public at some point — meaning the website still need to be able to convince investors that there's a viable business behind Quora.
We wanted to give Quora a shot, so I posed a question on the website about why the company should be valued as it has been (we also tweeted that question out with a link).
A couple good responses far:
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
