“In the bio,” says the author. If you’re like me and spend your time online doomscrolling, you’ve probably heard the word. The constant proliferation of new social media sites, combined with the fact that most only allow users to have one URL in their bio, has increased the demand for landing pages to house all of those links. Linktree, one of the most successful link consolidation sites, raised $45 million this week to finance the growth of its social commerce tools.
Linktree announced on Thursday, following a Series B round of funding led by Index Ventures and Coatue, two investors who have previously invested in Discord and TikTok, two rapidly expanding online platforms. Linktree, which has a group of 12 million users, received another $10.7 million in Series A funding just five months ago.
In a blog post published Thursday, Linktree co-founder and CEO Alex Zaccaria wrote, “This investment, and the encouragement from investors who’ve helmed the world’s biggest tech companies, will turbocharge our growth in social commerce and, eventually, help us continue to empower brands and creators all over the world.”
He went on to claim that in the last three months, about 4 million people, or roughly a third of the community, had signed up. This is most likely due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has prompted people to go online to communicate with loved ones and/or indulge in some retail therapy.
Linktree has experienced strong growth since its inception in 2016. According to Zaccaria, it currently averages about 32,000 signups a day, a 300 percent year-over-year rise from March 2020. Competing services, such as ContactInBio, Shorby, and, most recently, Beacons, have sprung up over the years to try to become the online landing page du jour. Despite this, Linktree still has the lion’s share of the market, according to Zaccaria, who spoke with TechCrunch this week. This is due in part to its high adoption rate by users from all walks of life, from real estate to sports and politics, and everything in between.
He told the outlet, “We may have begun as a link-in-bio tool, but Linktree has grown and the site has become a social identity layer of the internet.” “When it comes to our roadmap, our vision for how the platform can sit at the intersection of digital self-expression and action means we’re thinking big.”
