Greatist, a website promising “real facts and doable steps for your happiest life,” has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding.
I wrote about the startup in 2012, when I said it was focused on “non-sucky health content.” In other words, it offered health and wellness advice targeted at millennial readers, presented with a distinctive editorial voice and based on real reporting/research.
Since then, founder and CEO Derek Flanzraich said the company has grown to 10 million unique monthly visitors, with 50 percent of that traffic coming from organic search and less than 25 percent from social networks. Greatist’s revenue also grew last year, from “just about zero” to profitability.
Flanzraich said the team has “purposefully stayed capital efficient and bootstrappy” because he knew it would take a while to build “a brand-first business.”
“We didn’t really set out to raise a Series A, but found a dream partner with the same long-term vision and that makes a big difference,” he said. “More capital allows us to grow our audience and revenue more deliberately, gives us more room to try new things and make mistakes, and lets us serve our users brand partners in an even better way.”
The funding was led by Floodgate, with participation from Strauss Zelnick, Andy Russell, John Gardner and David Pecker. Greatist has now raised a total of $8 million, with past investors including  RiverPark Ventures, Vayner/RSE, Jon Miller, Ramit Sethi and Chris Hughes also participating in the Series A.