Silicon Valley : Glam Media, Inc. , number one in global reach for women online, announced today the raising of approximately $50 million in a private equity mezzanine funding. Proceeds of the funds will be used to build a Digital Media Technology Center, expand internationally and for strategic acquisitions. The Series E round is led by Aeris CAPITAL with existing Glam Media Series D Investors Burda Digital Holding—the digital arm of Hubert Burda Media—and Mizuho Capital participating.
Glam Media has raised private equity mezzanine financing to continue to fund the company’s hyper growth as a leading innovator of brand display advertising as the online consumer—driven by Google Search, Blogs and Twitter—moves away from portals and large destination sites to vertical niche content and social media. Glam is the pioneer of Vertical Media, bringing together highly engaged audiences at massive scale with quality mid and long-tail content and professional social media blogs. Glam also announced that North America Region business reached EBITDA profitability and the Global business was EBITDA break-even in Q4, 2009. This round brings the net total cash raised by the company directly to approximately $130 million.
“In a short 5 years since launch, Glam Media has become a ‘must-buy’ for the world’s leading brand advertisers,” said Samir Arora, chairman and CEO of Glam Media. “I am incredibly proud of our employees and the Glam family of publishers and partners that have all worked incredibly hard in the downturn, helping to buck the trends to create the Number 1 Women’s Lifestyle Media Company today.”
As a part of the financing, Dr. Marcel Reichart, Managing Director of DLD Ventures, an investment unit of Burda Digital Holding, will be joining the Glam Media Board of Directors as a representative of the Series E mezzanine investment.
“Glam Media has successfully demonstrated a highly scalable content and premium ad platform, which delivers value and innovation to global brand advertisers and publishers,” said Dr. Marcel Reichart of DLD Ventures. “This private equity-led round allows Glam Media to further expand its distributed media model internationally and into new market segments.”
By combining industry leading reach with passionate audiences, Glam Media is the #1 network for women in community—and achieved this position with unprecedented speed—reaching 72 million unique monthly visitors in the US and 160 million uniques globally. Glam Media is #8 in Pure Media properties, a comScore Media Metrix Top 11 Web property and a Top 10 Adweek Display Ad Publisher.
The new funding will be used to open a Digital Media Technology Center ,invest in new International markets ,launch new Audience-based Vertical Channels ,do strategic M&A to build the Glam Media Platform and to build an alternative to portals for top brand advertisers.