Quibb, the Hacker News for career climbers, is raising $1M

Quibb is probably one of the quietest “news curation” services and communities out there, but it just might be the one (little engine) that could.

We just spied a Quibb Form D filed yesterday for up to $1 million in debt and options, though only $450,000 has been raised thus far.

Unlike RSS readers and news aggregation and recommendation apps, Quibb is a community powered by member submissions of articles, blog posts, and whatever else they’re reading for work. The idea is for folks in the same industry to be able to share and keep up with each other’s reading lists.

It’s also not shied away from the email newsletter; it sends a daily digest to each member with roundup of potentially relevant links based on a few factors. Personally, that’s my main and favorite way to keep tabs on what the community is reading.

Another interesting (and both appealing and unappealing) aspect of Quibb is the exclusivity of membership: Each person must first apply with their Twitter account, preferably with a current member’s reference, and is then reviewed and accepted or rejected by MacPherson. Currently, Quibb accepts about 38 percent of applicants, give or take.

And although the goal is to expand into more verticals, the tech sector has been Quibb’s focus thus far. It now has members from 15,372 tech companies and organizations, according to its website. 

MacPherson has been experimenting with funding sources, including offering voluntary paid membership (yes, at least 138 members have already signed up to pay various monthly dues), as well as an invitation to any members interested in participating in a round to contact her.

It’ll be interesting to see what exactly MacPherson will do with the new chunk of change, but we’d surmise she won’t be compromising the commitment to quality content and membership she’s been protecting thus far.

MacPherson launched the community in 2013 and has since also released an iOS app for the service.

We’ve reached out to the company and will update with a comment.