Ello, the new no-ads social network, has been growing at a steady pace. The team announced one million users already on the network, along with three million more waiting to sign-up.

In order to make sure users feel like their data is safe, Ello recently became a Public Benefit Corporation. This prohibits the current and any future owners from three things: Selling user data to third parties, displaying third-party advertising on the website, and allowing future owners to change the requirements.

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This would make Ello harder to acquire in the long-term, if it became a successful business. Even though WhatsApp, Instagram and other apps were acquired without making any revenue, these startups have no barriers blocking them from adding ads in the future.

Ello's team believes that ads and user data should not be the product of a social network however, and believe through micro-transactions and customization, it will be able to bring a profit to the social network in the future.

These microtransactions aren't coming today, but Ello is interested in trying out some new routes for revenue. The team recently got a $5.5 million investment from a queue of venture capital firms, who all see Ello as a bright product in the future, despite its Public Benefit contract.

The way investors and the market sits currently, Ello could work off investment for the next few years, provided they continue to grow as a social network. Snapchat continues to take larger investor rounds every few months, in order to keep the startup going.

When asked if the team would ever have used data mining as a source of revenue, Paul Budnitz said there team was too small to get actual aggregation data for advertisers and would rather use other methods of monetization to stay successful.

TagsEllo, Public Benefit Corporation, Social network, Advertisements