Alexis Ohanian, Kevin Rose Team to buy and revive Digg

Content Aggregator Digg makes comeback using an unlikely partner: Reddit Co -founder and Rival Alexis Ohanian.

Ohanian and Digg founder Kevin Rose acquired the platform for a unveiled sum. The deal is supported by venture capital companies True Ventures, where Rose is a partner, and Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six. The partnership was announced Wednesday in a Video posts To the company’s X account, where Rose called the partnership a “team-up, he would never have imagined 20 years ago.”

Digg was founded in 2004 and increased prominently as a great outlets for trending news because it allowed users to judge stories. Rose did what became a notorious clumsy appearance on the cover of Business Week in 2006 as the child, “earning $ 60 million in 18 months.”

The company said in a release That it aims to differentiate themselves in the social media market by “focusing on AI-innovations designed to improve the user experience and build a human-centered alternative.” Digg said it will also create a platform that “prioritizes transparency, rewards human efforts and promotes enriching discussions.”

Ohanian also teased the collaboration, tells X -supporters Wednesday that he “worked on something new … but also old … but also very new” and is “excited” to collaborate with Rose.

At its highest in 2008, Digg was allegedly appreciated at approx. $ 160 million. But the increase of Facebook and other social sites caused traffic to dig. Meanwhile, Reddit, founded one year after Digg came by Ohanian and current CEO Steve Huffman, as a direct rival to Digg by forming society about types of content and letting users similarly judge news stories.

In 2012, Diggs Brand and Website was acquired by tech incubator Betaworks for about $ 500,000.

Reddit has continued its ascent and reported nearly 102 million daily active users at the end of the fourth quarter. The site received widespread attention when it became the center of the 2020 -MEME share when retailers inflicted huge pain on hedge funds that short -circuited stocks using a subbreddit known as Wallstreetbets.

Reddit was published on the New York Stock Exchange in March of $ 34 per year. Share and has seen its stock almost quintiling. Shares have increased approx. 3% years to date and added 5.9% during Wednesday’s session.

Ohanian has moved on to other projects since he stepped down from the Reddit Board of Directors in 2020. He is currently working with billionaire Frank McCourt in a bid for Tiktok after President Donald Trump extended the original deadline of the company’s Chinese-parent bytance to sell the social media platform or face a ban.

Rose said in a post on X that he and Ohanian “dreamed of features that were not even possible with yesterday’s technique.”

“The new @digg brings some great nostalgia, but we’re not here just to rebuild the past or clone a competitor,” he wrote.

– CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.

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