It may be hard out there for those pimping journalism right now, but not for The
Huffington Post. Arianna Huffington has raised another $15 million for her website.
The Huffington Post will confirm its third round of funding next week, according to the Times UK.
Oak Investment Partners, an investment firm that has funded media companies like Federated Media, Demand Media, MobiTV and Oberon Media, will lead the round.
The Huffington Post, which beat both Politico and The Drudge Report to become the most popular political website in the lead up to the election according to comScore, saw impressive traffic increases under George W. Bush's tenure as president.
The challenge for the site going forward will be to sustain or increase its traffic numbers under a friendly administration. (Huffington is such a fan of Obama's that she jokes: “I only text three people - my two teenage children and Barack
Obama.”)
Though most of HuffPo's 2.5 million contributors are unpaid, the site still has a good deal of overheard (especially compared to the 1.5 man operation at The Drudge Report). Most of the money raised to date has been reinvested to hire editors, reporters and advertising representatives, according to The New York Times.
Huffington wants to grow the site and plans to use the funding to expand its local coverage and investigative reporting — two areas that may be hard to monetize. Scaling local content in a shrinking ad market will be tough, and hunting down scoops can be a costly pursuit, especially for a site that specializes in commentary rather than breaking news.
This round brings the site's total funding to about $40 million. Huffington launched the site in 2005 with $2 million in capital. SoftBank Capital, Greycroft Partners and individuals like former AOL executive Bob Pittman have also contributed money to the expansion of the site.
Photo: Flickr/jdlasica
