Leading newsletter platform Substack, co-founded by Canadian Chris Best, former journalist Hamish McKenzie, and Waterloo alum Jairaj Sethi, has raised a $100-million USD ($137-million CAD) Series C funding round as it looks to better support independent creators using its service.
The round was led by American firms BOND and The Chernin Group, with participation from a16z, Klutch Sports Group CEO Rich Paul, and SKIMS CEO Jens Grede. The San Francisco-based company is now valued at $1.1 billion USD ($1.5 billion CAD), The New York Times reported.
“Creators are building livelihoods based on trust, quality, and creative freedom.”
Substack founding team
Substack allows creators to independently publish content and manage subscribers in exchange for 10 percent of subscription revenue plus transaction fees.
The company said it plans to use the funding to double down on its app, which allows for social networking, and âinvest in better toolsâ for its publishers.
âCreators are building livelihoods based on trust, quality, and creative freedom,â Best wrote in a joint Substack post with McKenzie and Sethi. âThey know the future belongs to those who build it.â
Best was recently featured on the inaugural BetaKit: Most Ambitious list of Canadian expats making waves in tech outside of Canada. Raised in Richmond, BC, Best studied systems design engineering at the University of Waterloo while Sethi studied mathematics, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Substack is now one of the most popular newsletter subscription services for journalists and independent creators worldwide, with reportedly more than 5 million paid subscribers as of March (by comparison, its longer-established, more diversified competitor, Patreon, had 8 million paying members across creators at last count). Founded in 2017, Substack combines newsletter and payment services to allow independent creators to publish content and manage subscriptions, while taking a cut of their revenue. Canadian creators such as Paul Wells, Jen Gerson, and Rachel Gilmore all publish content on the platform.
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The platform has served as an alternative to traditional news publishing amid a funding crisis in North American media. According to a June report by the Local News Research Project, 571 media outlets have shuttered or merged in Canada since 2008, the majority of them community papers. Advertising revenue for news outlets dropped by half from 2004 to 2022, according to a 2025 Analysis Group report.
Amid Substackâs success, it has also sparked its share of controversies, particularly for its anti-censorship approach to content moderation. In January 2024, the platform removed a handful of newsletters inciting violence through pro-Nazi content after they were flagged by Substack users, including tech journalist Casey Newton of Platformer. Newton stopped publishing on Substack as a result of the newsletter serviceâs initial resistance to taking down the content.
Though many of its writers and creators are earning sizable incomes, Substack has yet to turn a profit. Best said at an event hosted by The Information in June that the company doesnât plan to be profitable anytime soon, and is instead focused on growth. So far, it has raised approximately $200 million USD in funding, according to Reuters.
Feature image courtesy Substack.