4chan Founder ‘Moot’ Raises $625K For Stealth Startup Canvas Networks

Leena Rao

Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Friday, May 14th, 2010

According to an SEC filing, 4chan founder Christopher “Moot” Poole has raised $625,000 in funding for a stealth startup called Canvas Networks. We’ve emailed Poole to confirm the funding.

4chan is an online bulletin board where anyone can post comments, expound on topics and share images. Poole was featured as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world last year.

As of March, 4chan was receiving around 8.2 million unique visitors per month. Poole told the New York Times’ Nick Bilton that the site receives an average of 800,000 new posts a day. He also told Bilton that a Japanese toy store offered him $45,000 for 4chan, which he declined.

In the same interview, Poole said he was “working on a new project to reimagine what an image board should be today using the current technologies available” We’re assuming that Canvas Networks is related to this.

Company: Canvas Networks
Website: canv.as
Launch Date: 2010
Funding: $3.63M

Canvas is an image-centric social website currently in development, led by Christopher Poole. Canvas has an imageboard that allows users to anonymously share and comment on media, with eventual plans to include video and audio. The site also has image editing tools built into its interface, so users no longer need to rely on desktop editing programs to manipulate content.

→ Learn more

Company: 4chan
Website: 4chan.org
Launch Date: October 1, 2003

4chan is a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images. Different boards are dedicated to different topics, from Japanese anime to videogames, music, and photography. Users do not need to register a username before participating in the community.

→ Learn more

blog comments powered by Disqus