Founder: EV Williams
Launched: 2012
Funding: $134 million
Valuation: $457 million
Disrupting: Publishing
Rival: Tumblr
Photo: Helena Price | Medium
Ev Williams, co-founder and CEO of Medium
Medium is a social publishing platform started in 2012 by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams as a way to publish writings longer than Twitter's 140-character maximum. The San Francisco-based company allows anyone to share ideas and perspectives that matter to them. For writers it's a platform with simple creation tools and a big platform from which to publish their work.
Read MoreFULL LIST: 2016 DISRUPTOR 50
Readers can follow writers and topics that interest them and receive a personalized feed of content every day. Medium also has its own publications, including the technology publication Backchannel. In late April the company raised another $50 million in a round led by Spark Capital. That brings its total venture funding to $134 million.
"We live in a world where bad ideas are as prevalent as ever and some are seemingly even finding new life. If there's one principle above all others that drove me in the creation of Medium, it's to help good ideas win out over bad ones."
The company is looking to expand outside the United States and is using part of the money raised to roll out different tools that make it easier for publishers of all sizes (groups and individuals) to publish their work on Medium.
