HackerNoon Raises $250k at $50M Valuation From Forward Research

HackerNoon, the technology publishing platform widely recognised for its insightful content, has announced a $250,000 investment from Forward Research, the leading research and development firm in the Arweave ecosystem. The investment was made in exchange for 5,728 shares of HackerNoon common stock at $42.55 per share, implying a pre-money valuation of $50 million.

This latest round of investment signifies a considerable increase in HackerNoon's valuation from its previous equity crowdfunding price in 2019 of $8.20 and the 2020 strategic investment price of $11.35 per share.

In a statement, HackerNoon Founder and CEO David Smooke emphasised the company's dedication to driving the cost of hosting and distributing Web3 digital text towards zero:

We backed up the entire HackerNoon library on Arweave for about $58, he said. "We're still in the very early days of a truly decentralised internet, but when it comes to hosting and distributing digital text, we're thrilled to be a small part of driving that cost towards zero."

Backing up their tech library on Arweave ensures that HackerNoon's extensive collection of articles, which recently exceeded one billion words, will have a secure and decentralized Web3 backup. The move aligns with the platform's mission to leverage Web3 tech for content preservation and distribution, and not simply to just write about it.

In addition to archiving its content on Arweave, HackerNoon has also integrated several other Web3 technologies into its publishing system, including enabling users to sign up or login with their digital wallets, embedding NFTs into stories and profile avatars, integrating crypto data price pages for top cryptocurrencies, and running Web3 writing contests.

HackerNoon has become a hub for information on blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and Web3. With these integrations, the platform is also positioning itself as a pioneer in utilising them to further improve the publishing industry.

Web3 Backups: All HackerNoon Stories Now Republish on Arweave

As soon as a HackerNoon story is published, it is concurrently backed up on Arweave, guaranteeing the permanence of its content. HackerNoon stories will live even if HackerNoon dies.

HackerNoon's integration with Arweave is part of its initiative to make its content more accessible. The company has developed a lightweight version of its site, which excludes additional features such as emoji reactions and related stories. This version is 40% smaller than the primary site, ensuring its viability in regions with slower internet connections.

HackerNoon is expanding its reach by transforming its text stories into various formats like audio story files, and multilingual translations. By integrating its content management system with more Web3 technologies, HackerNoon hopes to attract a broader Web3 readership, having already published over 10,000 Web3 stories to date.

For readers and writers, accessing these Web3 backups is straightforward. Each HackerNoon story contains a "Permanent on Arweave" button at the bottom, which leads to a unique URL on Arweave's network. This URL is a combination of a transaction hash (TxHash), the Arweave gateway (arweave.net), and a string derived from the TxHash.

Currently, all content pieces from HackerNoon are submitted via a specific wallet address. In the future, this could become the individual contributors' wallet signature. This approach presents an opportunity for readers to access HackerNoon stories directly from Arweave if, for some reason, HackerNoon is not accessible in their region.

Writers can also find a Viewblock link to their story on Arweave on each individual story stats page. These backups serve as an immutable proof that the story was submitted by a particular user and published on HackerNoon.

HackerNoon entrust their text backups to Google Cloud Platform, and now, they are also entrusting them to Arweave, something that signifies a shift in internet dynamics. This diversification of backup systems is a testament to the direction the internet is heading, where more curation and distribution will be built off public ledgers than is the case today.

About HackerNoon

How hackers start their afternoons. HackerNoon's built for technologists to read, write, and publish. We are an open and international community of 35,000+ contributing writers publishing stories and expertise for 4,000,000+ curious and insightful monthly readers. Founded in 2016, HackerNoon is an independent technology publishing platform run by David Smooke and Linh Smooke.