Quora collects $80 million in funding
The Web and mobile information hub is padding its bank account with new millions from Tiger Global in the hopes that it can remain an independent company.
Quora is attempting to clear up questions about its longevity with $80 million in financial insurance.
The new millions are coming mostly from investment firm Tiger Global as part of Quora's third funding round, which also included participation from existing investors Benchmark, Matrix, North Bridge, and Peter Thiel. Quora is not disclosing its valuation.
Founded in 2009 by former Facebook engineers, Quora is a revenue-less, question-and-answer service with 500,000 topics and an unknown number of users. The Web and mobile app is sandwiched somewhere between Internet information hubs like Yahoo Answers and Wikipedia. Its pitch to consumers is that the quality of content is best on Quora because it encourages identity, meaning people often submit and respond to questions using their real names.
Quora was not actively seeking the additional $80 million in funding, and this financing round will be the last for the company, Quora's head of business operations, Marc Bodnick, told CNET.
"This capital will allow us to make sure we are permanent as a company, as a library, as a product," Bodnick said. "We want to be an independent company for the long term, and not be acquired, so this capital is basically insurance that allows us to build the best possible product."
Though Quora currently makes no money, the service will likely embrace advertising at some later date, Bodnick said. Higher up on the priority list is improving the product and making Quora available in languages other than English.
As far as other important questions go, Quora has been reluctant to answer queries about its audience. Without revealing specifics, Bodnick asserted that Quora attracts hundreds of millions of views per month, and that 40 percent of traffic comes by way of its mobile apps.
Unofficially, the Web site attracted 1.98 million unique visitors in January of this year, according to data provided by Nielsen. Visitors to Quora's Web site spent an average of 13.5 minutes browsing the site during January, Nielsen said.
Quora has now collected more than $140 million in funding from investors. The company had previously raised money twice before, pulling in more than $60 million across its Series A and B funding rounds, though Quora has never confirmed those amounts.