Maybe Substack Can Grow Very Well Without Venture Capital Dollars

Substack, an edition platform known for its newsletter service, announced this week that it had crossed the bar of 2 million paid subscriptions. Given the wealth of historical data we have regarding paid subscriber growth at Substack, the number caught our attention.

Substack’s simple business model also helps generate a few estimates of gross trading volume and revenue for the business, which we’ll explore.

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First, a bit of background: Substack’s first known external capital came in January 2018 through startup accelerator Y Combinator. The company raised a $2 million seed round in April of the same year. From there, the startup’s ability to raise new funds quickly accelerated, with Andreessen Horowitz leading Substack’s $15.3 million Series A in mid-2019 and a whopping $65 million Series B. dollars in March 2021.