Quora, the renowned platform for questions and answers, is making headlines once again, this time by securing a significant funding round for the first time in nearly seven years. The sum of $75 million has been injected into Quora’s growth trajectory, thanks to the generous support of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The capital infusion is earmarked for the advancement of Poe, Quora’s AI chat platform.
What sets Quora’s AI chatbots apart from the competition is their distinctive approach to fostering a subset of the creator economy centered around AI chatbots. In a departure from the conventional model where content creators rely on platforms like YouTube for ad revenue, Quora is pioneering a novel concept. They are empowering creators to generate income by crafting intriguing AI bots.
Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo said in a statement: “We expect the majority of the funding to be used to pay creators of bots on the platform through our recently launched creator monetization program.”
Quora’s commitment to empowering creators takes center stage with its creator monetization program for Poe, an initiative launched in October. This program provides an avenue for individuals who craft bots or prompts on Poe to monetize their creations. Remarkably, even developers who integrate bots with Poe’s AI are eligible to participate in this revenue-sharing endeavor.
By raising a substantial fund, the company is positioning itself to attract top-tier developers to Poe, offering them the prospect of financial compensation for their innovative contributions.
What sets Poe apart is its aggregation of a diverse array of text and image AI models, including the likes of ChatGPT, DALL-E 3, Claude 2, Stable Diffusion, Llama, and many others. This rich tapestry of AI tools serves as a vast playground for creators, providing them with a multitude of resources to unleash their creativity.
In 2017, the company secured funding with a valuation of approximately $1.8 billion, marking a significant milestone in its journey. However, the latest funding round has witnessed an alarming decline, valuing Quora at only $500 million.
D’Angelo wrote: “In the last two years, the market has changed substantially, driven by rising interest rates and higher cost of capital. This means our valuation is lower than our previous peak, but we are happy to finally be marked to this new market.”
Via: Tech Crunch
