Twitter Cofounder Ev Williams Raises $25 Million for Medium

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Evan Williams, cofounder of both Medium and Twitter, speaks at the WIRED Business Conference: Think Bigger at Museum of Jewish Heritage on May 7, 2013 in New York City.

Image: Brad Barket/Getty Images for WIRED

By Jason Abbruzzese2014-01-28 20:59:10 UTC

Medium, the blogging platform started by Twitter cofounder Evan Williams, has raised $25 million from a group of veteran technology investors.

The funding is the first outside investment into the site, which launched in a beta version in August 2012. News of the investment first broke on Re/Code .

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This is not Williams' first foray into long form web writing; he also founded Blogger, one of the first self-serve weblogs. Medium updates the concept with a sleeker look and visual backdrops, as well as networking and collaboration opportunities for writers.

The site was originally founded by Williams, another Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and Twitter's former Vice President of Product Jason Goldman, although Williams wrote in a post on the platform that he was the primary funder.

"As CEO, my aim is to maximize Medium’s chances for success. Expanding our network and having partners to lean on is a useful way to do that," Williams wrote in the post.

Greylock Partners was the largest investors in a round that also included Google Ventures. Greylock will send two people to Medium's board of directors, David Sze and Josh Elman.

"When Blogger launched almost 15 years ago, it was among the first products to give anyone a place to publish their thoughts," Elman and Sze wrote in a separate post on Medium. "Since then, content has increased exponentially, but there is still a lot to be done to help people express their ideas and reach the people who would be most interested."

Medium has been something of an enigma in the online content world. Gawker previously noted that the site has hired some big names in online journalism, such as Evan Hansen, a former Wired.com editor, and paid others for their posts, including Felix Salmon of Reuters.

Online commentators have kept a keen eye on Medium's monetization plan. Williams told Businesweek's Brad Stone that banner ads were a no-go, and that everything from corporate sponsorship of posts to a small subscription fee is under consideration.

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Topics: blogging, Business, ev williams, funding, me.dium, Media, Startups, Twitter