Glam Media, a vertical advertising network, has raised its fifth round of venture capital – $50 million from aeris CAPITAL, a Switzerland and Silicon Valley based private equity fund. The company is not disclosing the valuation of the round, but it is rumored to be around $750 million.
Glam’s last major funding was a $85 million combined debt and equity round in early 2008, two years ago, that valued the company at around $500 million.
$10 million – $15 million of this new round will be used to purchase stock from existing employees/founders as well as early venture investors. The rest of the round will be used for investment in the business and strategic acquisitions.
Glam is also announcing EBITDA profitability on North American operations and break-even results globally for Q4 2009. 2009 revenue was likely around $55 million, up from $40 million in 2008.
The company attracts nearly 160 million unique monthly worldwide visitors to the sites it controls and represents, putting it at no. 14 on Comscore’s top 100 worldwide Internet properties. Those visitors racked up over 2.5 billion page views and 2.5 billion minutes spent on the site. The network includes over 1,400 publishers and other content sites.
Glam attracts around 72 million montly U.S. visitors to its site, more than double competitor iVillage’s 33 million. The company, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley and New York City, is clearly gearing up for an IPO in the next 12 – 18 months.
Glam Media is a vertical media company, comprised of both Glam-owned-and-operated properties (Glam.com, Brash.com, and soon, Bliss.com) and a publisher network of 2000+ lifestyle websites and blogs. Glam Media’s vertical media model aims to enable premium brands to connect with audiences online. Glam Media is #1 in global reach for women online, with approximately 90 million unique monthly visitors in the US and more than 200 million uniques globally. Glam Media is a comScore Top 10 U.S. Web Property, is...
Aeris Capital AG is a private equity fund and financial advisor with locations in the United States and Switzerland.
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
