What: Global fan-driven sports media platform Minute Media announced the closing of a US $15 million investment round, bringing its total funding since inception to US $60 million.
Why it matters: These additional US $15 million, led by Qumra Capital, will serve the parent company of sports sites 90min and 12up to expand and bring new sports brands ahead of the 2018 World Cup.
Launched in 2011, today Minute Media announced a US $15 million investment led by Israeli late-stage venture fund Qumra Capital. With this amount, the global digital sports media platform brought its total funding up to $60 Million, as an addition to existing investors such as Battery Ventures, Dawn Capital and ProSieben.
According to Boaz Dinte, managing partner at Qumra Capital, the way Minute Media is presenting its content, particularly for the millennial generation, will make it grow consistently, to “become the world leader in the digital sports industry.”
Over the last year, Minute Media has shown its potential by going from 30 million monthly users to 70 million. Also, according to ComScore data, the sports-focused media property in the US, UK and 10 other top global media markets.
Less than a year ago, in May of 2016, Minute Media launched its US platform 12up, which has a Spanish-language version, and opened new offices in Sao Paulo, Singapore and Tokyo. This is why this investment is key to boost its planed growth in current locations, and new markets such as London, New York, Tel Aviv and Manila. Minute Media also owns the soccer site 90min.com which is published in 10 languages including in Spanish for Latin America.
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Upcoming Esports Brand
In addition, the sports-content company is planning to launch an Esports brand in April that will leverage key event and league rights, team relationships, using different video and editorial formats.
“Between the development of key platforms in advance of the 2018 World Cup, our forthcoming Esports brand launch, and our core audience growth objectives, we are very excited about 2017 and what’s to come,” said Asaf Peled, Minute Media founder and CEO through a press release.
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