Anonymous messaging app, Secret, has raised $25 million in fudning

Secret, the app that lets users share notes with others without revealing their identity, has attracted a lot of controversy (or celebration, depending on who you are) for how it enables the spread of racy but sometimes mean or simply controversial notes about people, places and things. But it is also attracting a lot of something else: moolah. Today, the startup co-founded by ex-Googlers Chrys Bader-Wechseler and David Byttow has announced that it has raised another $25 million in funding. The Series B round includes Index Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Garry Tan and Alexis Ohanian, SV Angel, Fuel Capital, Ceyuan Ventures, and — fittingly — “several others that shall remain a secret.” Index’s Danny Rimer is joining the startup’s board of directors. The company has now raised just over $36 million, with other investors including Google Ventures, Joe Montana, Kleiner Perkins, David Sacks and many more. The NYT notes that this latest round values the company at over $100 million.

Secret, the app that lets people post messages anonymously, has been beloved by the tech insiders who use the service to gossip about their jobs and love lives. But now Secret’s founders want to push the service into the mainstream with new features intended to broaden the potential audience of the app. On Monday, the company will release a new version of the application that will allow people to sign up for Secret and find friends using their Facebook credentials. Previously, the service relied on a user’s address book and list of contacts to find friends and see their Secret posts. Linking Facebook to a service that is largely anonymous seems counterintuitive. But David Byttow, co-founder and chief executive of Secret, said such linking was the most requested feature from Secret users, who are eager to see more content posted through the service. “I definitely feel like early adopters might balk at it a bit, but in mainstream people just want more conversation,” he said in a recent interview. Mr. Byttow said that connecting by using Facebook would be entirely optional. In addition, the company is introducing “collections” that will help organize messages posted on Secret and make it easier to browse by topics, such as humor, dating or food. “We want to show what kind of conversations” people are having on Secret, he said, “and see where that takes us.” He also said that this new feature release was “just step one” and that he hoped the most popular Secrets would eventually be indexed on Google and show up in relevant search results.