Participated · Equity · Sep 2016

theSkimm produces daily newsletters that summarize news and pop culture for a loyal audience of roughly seven million readers and recruits "Skimm’bassadors" for word‑of‑mouth growth. Co‑founded in 2012 by former TV news producers Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg, the company has expanded beyond its core newsletters into subscription products, an app with a calendar of upcoming news and televised events, podcasts, and an e‑commerce business. Revenue has more than doubled year over year since 2016, driven by subscriptions, native advertising, and affiliate licensing. The staff has doubled and the company recently moved into a new headquarters. TheSkimm plans to add more subscription services, further expand into video and podcasting, and pursue data analysis efforts. Recent hiring and product expansion appear to be funded by the new raise to support these initiatives. theSkimm is a newsletter startup that distills the day's headlines into a few key points conveyed in a conversational, friendly style. The company says it has 4 million subscribers, mostly women between the ages of 22 and 34. It has expanded beyond newsletters with Skimm Ahead, a calendar of upcoming events that costs $2.99 per month. theSkimm also introduced Skimm Studies, free reports drawn from surveys of its readers intended to provide an inside look into what female millennials think. The company has run initiatives with partners such as Rock the Vote and says it has helped 60,000 people register to vote. Financially, the article notes an $8 million round led by 21st Century Fox announced in June and a subsequent $500,000 investment from The New York Times and several strategic and individual backers. theSkimm is a New York–based newsletter startup that delivers concise 'CliffsNotes' style summaries of important news events to a largely female millennial readership. The four-year-old company has grown its subscriber base to 3.5 million worldwide. Content is distributed for free and the 20-person company generates revenue through product endorsements and native advertising. It recently launched a paid calendar service priced at $2.99 per month, though subscription numbers for that product have not been disclosed. theSkimm plans to expand into video and other formats under a unit named Skimm Studios as part of a broader ambition to become a multi-platform audience company. According to CrunchBase, the company has raised roughly $18 million to date. theSkimm is a NYC-based provider of a daily email newsletter that simplifies headlines for educated professionals, primarily women. Led by Carly Zakin, the company delivers editorial content that explains and contextualizes the news. It raised $1.1M in seed financing to support growth. The funds will be used to scale the team and operations. The company plans to focus on improving the user experience and implementing partnerships.

Participated · Series A · Jul 2015

Led by founder and CEO Justin Fuisz, Fuisz Media turns videos into interactive experiences that allow viewers to touch or click on objects to discover product information, branded content, links to company websites and the ability to buy items. The company works with advertising agencies and global brands including Wal‑Mart, Microsoft, Victoria’s Secret, Gillette and Target. Fuisz Media is based in Santa Monica, California and also has offices in New York and Tokyo. The company closed a $10m Series A funding round to support its business. In conjunction with the funding, Ross Levinsohn and Ian Doody, a principal at Evolution Media Capital, joined Fuisz Media’s board of directors. The articles do not disclose revenues or user metrics. Fuisz Media builds computer-vision technology that identifies and tags specific items in video, enabling interactive overlays for brands, advertisers, and publishers. The system tracks items frame-by-frame and is designed to work across multiple platforms, ad servers, and devices including desktop, mobile, and tablets. The company says it achieves a high rate of accuracy in item identification and reports unusually high click-through rates—around 20 percent or higher on some campaigns. Fuisz has signed enterprise clients including Nike, Target, and Walmart to deploy interactive video experiences. After roughly two years of development in stealth, the company has emerged publicly and is commercializing its product. Financially, Fuisz announced $2.1 million in seed funding to support its launch and growth.