TheSkimm, whose newsletter helps readers catch up on current events every morning, has nearly doubled its total funding.
On Friday, the startup announced it has raised a $12 million Series C funding round, bringing its total amount raised to $28.4 million. Participants in the round include new investors Google Ventures and Spanx founder Sara Blakely, as well as existing investors 21st Century Fox, RRE and Homebrew.
Like many digital media companies, theSkimm has branched into video and podcasting. The Series C investment will help the startup enhance its presence in both.
According to TechCrunch, funds will also be used to expand its range of subscription services. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering what Head of Product Dheerja Kaur told Built In NYC earlier this year:
“Subscriptions are on the mind for digital media companies as Facebook and Google continue to cannibalize ad dollars,” Kaur said at the time. “Whether it's drawing on learnings from companies like Amazon or Spotify, who are transacting on ‘must-have’ features like two-day shipping or offline listening, or looking to video-first companies like Netflix or YouTube, we'll start to see digital media companies rethink their entire value proposition and how that can fit into a subscription model.”
Founded in 2012 by former TV news producers Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg, theSkimm sends out a daily newsletter with bite-sized information that’s intended to be read at a glance. While its target audience is millennial women on the go, its reader demographic has widened in step with its newsletter's gains in popularity and the startup's expansions into other media channels.
