Who has invested in Substack?

Lead investors for each round are in the funding timeline.

Who are Substack's competitors?

The closest newsletter / subscription publishing platform peers are on the competitors page.

How can I get exposure to Substack?

The routes section explains what is realistically available for a company at this stage.

Is Substack publicly traded?

No. Substack is a private company; its shares do not trade on a public exchange.

How to Invest in Substack: 3 Routes

Three routes · ranked by accessibility

The routes that exist, and what each one really gives you

If you came here to buy Substack stock, there is nothing to buy on an exchange: no public ticker exists. What follows is ranked by how easily an ordinary investor can start. Whether Substack shares are on offer through a private route at a given moment is up to the holders.

ROUTE Aany investor

Listed funds that hold private companies

A handful of listed closed-end and venture funds carry late-stage private names in their portfolios. You buy the fund in any brokerage account; the private company is one position inside it. A fund's latest schedule of investments shows whether it holds Substack.

Substack holding · fund-specific

Pros

✓Works in an ordinary brokerage account

✓No accreditation, no company approval

✓Sellable on any trading day

Cons

—You own fund shares, and Substack may not be in the portfolio at all

—Closed-end funds have traded at large premiums to NAV

—Any single position is a slice — the rest of the book moves your return too

ACCESSAny brokerage that lists the fund · no minimum beyond one share · read the latest holdings report and the premium to NAV before you assume Substack is in there

ROUTE Baccredited only

Secondary marketplaces

Platforms that match existing shareholders with buyers. This is the route that can end with private shares, or an interest in a vehicle holding them, in your account. Supply comes from employees and early investors choosing to sell, so a name can be quoted one month and absent the next.

Substack availability · set by holders

Pros

✓Direct exposure to the equity itself

✓Pricing follows recent private-market sales

✓A position taken now survives into an eventual listing

Cons

—Accredited-investor status is verified before you can bid

—The company must approve the transfer and usually holds a right of first refusal

—Five-figure minimums and weeks of settlement; no exit until a liquidity event

ACCESSAccredited investor · platform onboarding and KYC · company transfer approval plus the refusal window before settlement

ROUTE Cinvitation only

Employee-share vehicles

Single-purpose vehicles and forward contracts written against shares held by employees and early investors. The sponsor holds the position; you hold an interest in the sponsor's vehicle. Deals circulate through fund networks; there is no public order book for them.

Substack vehicles · by invitation

Pros

✓Reaches allocations that never appear on a marketplace

✓The vehicle can participate in a future tender

✓Sponsors handle the paperwork and the cap-table mechanics

Cons

—You are one layer removed from the cap table

—Management and carry fees stack on top of the share price

—Transfer restrictions can invalidate a structure the company never approved

ACCESSInvitation or qualified-purchaser status · counsel should read the vehicle documents before you subscribe · minimums are set by the sponsor

FINAL STEPnot a route today

Track the IPO

Substack has not announced an IPO. Until a public filing exists there is nothing to allocate, nothing to price and nothing to trade.

WATCHA public IPO filing opens the listed route

A filing is not a commitment to list. Companies withdraw drafts, and no date exists until the company sets one.

Comparison · every route in one table

The routes side by side

The first row is the Canborsa market closest to Substack: a perpetual on MSFT, open in minutes with an email and USDC. The three routes below it are the ways to hold Substack shares, ranked by how easily an ordinary investor can start.

Route

Access requirement

Typical minimum

Liquidity

Ends with shares?

Canborsa· MSFT-PERP—Sign upnearest market to Substack · live

Email, X or a wallet + USDC

from $1

24/7 · perpetual market

No — perp exposure on MSFT

A · Listed fundsindirect · via a fund

A brokerage account that lists the fund — no accreditation

one fund share

Daily, on-exchange

No — fund shares

B · Secondary marketplacesshare ownership

Accredited investor, company transfer approval, refusal window

five figures, platform-set

Weeks — approval-gated

Yes — with restrictions

C · Employee-share vehiclesshare ownership · indirect

An invitation from the sponsor, plus qualified-purchaser status in most structures

set by the sponsor

At a future tender or exit

Indirect — via the vehicle

Canborsa — a perpetual on MSFT, price exposure without sharesshare ownership — you sit on or behind the cap tablefund exposure

Liquidity events · read as an access question

Who could actually buy in, and when

Every disclosed round, read as an access question.

No Substack liquidity event has been open to retail buyers on the primary side — the routes above exist precisely because of that.

Liquidity event

Date

Valuation

Who could participate

Series (2025 round) LATEST

1 Jun 2025

$1.1B

BOND, The Chernin Group, Skims, Klutch Sports Group. $100M raised, led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Series U

1 Nov 2024

Accomplice VC, Array Ventures, Stuart Peterson, Gradient Ventures, Kickstart Fund, Prototype Capital, Seven Seven SIX, The HIT Forge, Transformation Capital, Trucks Venture Capital, Doug Hayes, Hari Lakshmanan, Immad Akhund, Siqi Chen. $10M raised.

Series B extension

29 Mar 2023

A primary round — the company sells new shares to investors it selects. $5M raised.

Series B

1 Mar 2021

A16z Scout Fund, AlleyCorp, BAM Ventures, Bling Capital, Eniac Ventures, Nyca Partners, Pitbull Ventures, RRE Ventures, The Finger Group, Tsvc Capital, VU Venture Partners, Zigg Capital, Rich Miner, Steph Korey, Will Szczerbiak. $65M raised, led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Series A

1 Jul 2019

Rich Miner, Y Combinator. $15.3M raised, led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Seed

1 Apr 2018

Y Combinator, The Chernin Group, Zhen Fund, Emmett Shear, Justin Waldron.