Bustle, the lady-centric news site led by Bryan Goldberg (because he knows women) has raised $15.5 million led by General Catalyst. Time Warner Investments, Rothenberg Ventures, 500 Startups and The Social+Capital Fund also participated in the round.
This represents Bustle’s Series C round, having raised a $6.5 million Series A in August of 2013 and a $5 million Series B in July of this year.
The company has faced some adversity in the last year, with Google Ventures pulling out its $100k investment in the company because “Google Ventures and Bryan Goldberg were not on the same ethical page.”
General Catalyst’s managing partner, who took lead on the deal, Neil Sequeira, said that Bustle is a different company now.
“Some of the challenges the company ran into happened while Bryan was building out a team of experienced professional women to run the site,” said Sequeira. “That team is in place now and we will continue to find good people to maintain that voice. The focus of the company around that demographic is there now, and a year ago it wasn’t.”
He added that it had to be authentic for GC to invest, and that in his opinion, Bustle has found that.
All that said, Bustle claims to have seen 20 million unique visitors in November 2014, with an editorial team that has grown to 22 women, plus contributors.
“We were really impressed that Bustle was able to grow to 20 million monthly uniques over the course of a year without spending anything on marketing,” said Sequeira.
Bustle is a media site that is “for and by women who are moving forward as fast as you are,” says the site.
The new investment brings Bustle’s total funding to nearly $27 million, and the new financing will go toward building out the team even more.