Imgur Secures $20 Million Funding from Coil to Expand its Platform

Imgur, an online image sharing community and image host with more than 300 million users, has secured $20 in funding from Coil, a blockchain-powered content monetization platform. The partnership will enable Imgur to expand its business and reward content creators with XRP, according to a press release on June 26, 2019.

Imgur Gets Even Bigger

As stated in its press release, Imgur, a community-driven entertainment platform, announced the receipt of a $20 million investment from Coil, a San Francisco-based firm whose primary objective is to help content creators monetize their works.

Also, the deal will see Stefan Thomas, founder and CEO of Coil and former CTO of Ripple Labs, joining Imgur’s board of directors.

“Imgur went live in 2009 as a gift to the internet,” said Alan Schaaf, founder and CEO of Imgur. He added: 

“Over the last 10 years we’ve established one of the largest, most positive online communities, based on our core value to give more than we take.”

Imgur previously secured a $40 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz and Reddit. Founded in 2018, Coil charges users $5 per month as a subscription fee, and it uses the Interledger Protocol to process micropayments.

Coil users who pay the monthly subscription fee can install its Chrome and Firefox browser extension which enables them to get paid for their content in either XRP or USD at a rate of 36 cents per hour.

According to TechCrunch, the funds Coil is investing in Imgur were provided by Ripple’s Xpring project, an incubator that offers grants to credible startups interested in integrating XRP and the XRP Ledger into their business processes.

With the latest Imgur-Coil alliance, the former will can now add new premium content reserved for Coil subscribers to maintain a balance on its platform.

“We’re in the business of making the internet better. We are not interested in taking anything away from the community,” said Schaaf.