In a bid to expand into new markets, Glam Media on Monday closed on an $84.6 million funding round led by German publisher Hubert Burda Media.
The funding values Glam at $500 million, according to a source familiar with the deal, and amounts to nearly triple the $29.6 million raised previously.
Glam, an advertising platform whose audience is based on a mix of proprietary core and affiliated sites, also plans to use the funding for acquisitions of advertising technology companies as well as media sites that would accelerate the company's entry into new categories.
"There are local players that would be a good fit," Glam Chief Executive Samir Arora said of potential media acquisition targets in foreign markets.
Even with "zero employees outside the United States to date," Mr. Arora noted that Glam Media is ranked No. 1 in Worldwide Women's Reach by comScore in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
Glam's hybrid model has raised questions about how to compare it to rivals like NBC/Universal's iVillage, whose traffic is centered on owned and operated sites. Mr. Arora, however, said that the hybrid model lets Glam scale with about 150 full-time employees.
"That is our single largest source of strength," he said. "People don't relate to Glam's business model. The largest media company is Google. Besides [Google] Maps, they don't create content."
In January, comScore ranked Glam No. 1 in the women's category for total Internet audience, ahead of iVillage.com and auFeminin.com. For the same period, Mediametrix placed Glam as the 28th ranked web property overall, overtaking No. 47 iVillage, which had led the field for Women's sites in January 2007. In March 2006, NBC Universal acquired iVillage in a $600 million cash deal.
The latest funding round is split between $64.6 million in series D venture funding and $20 million in debt financing.
Aside from Burda, publisher of more than 260 magazines, investors in the latest round include GLG Partners, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich Ventures and Prior investors Accel Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Walden Ventures, and Information Capital. Providing the debt financing is Hercules Technology Growth Capital.
Investment bankers from Banc of America Securities, Allen & Company, and Deutsche Bank served as advisors on the deal.