The college-centric anonymous messaging app Yik Yak has raised $62 million, valuing the company at $300 to $400 million, reports The Wall Street Journal. Investors are betting on two trends: anonymity and messaging. Sequoia Capital led the investment. According to the WSJ, the venture capital firm made more than $3 billion thanks to a $60 million investment in messaging app Whatsapp.
Yik Yak raised $1.5 million in April of this year and another $10 million in June. The app is only about a year old. For some context:
Facebook at 1 year old: $13.2MM total raised. Yik Yak at 1 year old: $73.5MM total raised.
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 24, 2014
The app has had its share of challenges in its young life, including cyberbullying, bomb threats and the requisite lawsuit from a former friend.
However, Yik Yak’s founders Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington have their sights set beyond college campuses: They want to take on Twitter. Well, they certainly have a lot of work to do to court the non-college-age crowd:
These are the top-rated messages on YikYak, the app that just raised $62 million from Silicon Valley's best VCs. pic.twitter.com/omu81srFWB
— Dennis K. Berman (@dkberman) November 24, 2014
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