No, not a shock at all, given that Snapchat had tens of millions of daily users that year, but only launched its first ads in October. Still, Gawker’s leaked accounts for Snapchat between January and November 2014 are still worth a gawp: the company generated revenues of $3.1m, but recorded a net loss of $128.4m, ploughing $47m into product development and $15.7m into staffing costs.
As the report notes, Snapchat’s succession of increasingly-large funding rounds saw it end November 2014 with $320.6m of cash in the bank. Since then, the app has grown to 100m daily active users, with Snapchat raising a further $485m of funding in December 2014, $200m in March 2015, and $337.6m in May 2015. Meanwhile, Snapchat has also ramped up its native-video ad sales within the Discover and Stories sections of its app: in June, it was reported that the average ‘Live Story’ attracts 20m people, with ad rates of around two cents per view, so around $400k per story.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…