The Newsletter Upstart Taking on Substack

Beehiiv co-founders Tyler Denk, Benjamin Hargett and Jake Hurd, from left to right. Photo courtesy of Beehiiv.

Two summers ago, when a group of employees who previously worked at newsletter and media startup Morning Brew was fundraising for their newsletter startup Beehiiv, they had to contend with Meta Platforms’ newly launched Bulletin newsletter service, Twitter’s Revue, as well as startup Substack, which had recently been valued at $650 million. A lot has changed since then.

Beehiiv was “playing from behind,” said its CEO Tyler Denk in an interview with The Information when it set out to raise its $2.6 million seed round in 2021. But now it has very little competition from big tech companies. Meta shut down its newsletter product and Twitter did the same after new owner Elon Musk took over. Only Microsoft’s LinkedIn has stuck with newsletters. And Substack, which would likely have a hard time reaching its prior valuation if it were to raise money today, has continued to roll out new products.