Competitor X Bluesky was valued at $700 million

The Bluesky social network was officially launched in February 2024 for the mass user and, according to its own data, has an audience of 25.9 million people. A significant part of the social network’s audience came to Bluesky after Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, as well as in connection with the purchase of the social network X by pro-Trump businessman Elon Musk , notes the publication.

Bluesky has already raised $8 million in funding in a seed round in 2023 and $15 million in funding in 2024. The exact amount of the deal to be concluded this year is still unknown and its conditions may still change, Business Insider highlights.

At the same time, additional funding may force Bluesky’s management to think about models for monetizing the platform: the service is still advertising-free and the company itself has stated that it will not sell user data to advertisers for profit. , since “there are other strategies to maintain [работоспособности] social media.” In a 2023 press release, Bluesky stated that one of its revenue-generating steps was the company’s introduction of a unique, custom domain purchasing feature.

“Over the last eight days, our user base has grown by one million every day, exceeding our expectations. We had to speed up the process of installing new servers. [из-за наплыва пользователей]”Bluesky COO Rose Wang told Business Insider in November 2024. According to her, November last year, which coincided with the US elections, forced the social network’s team to work almost continuously in mode ” fire”.

In terms of functionality and design, Bluesky is practically no different from X and Twitter. In the new social network you will be able to publish posts of no more than 256 characters, add images and share videos. Jack Dorsey announced BlueSky in 2023 as an application focused on decentralization and the use of blockchain technologies.