Digital-Media Startup Mic Banks $21 Million From Time Warner, Others

Mic, a digital news and lifestyle media startup targeting (whom else?) millennials, announced that it has raised $21 million in Series C financing from investors including Time Warner.

The round was led by previous investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, which led Mic’s Series B round of funding in June 2015, with participation from Time Warner Investments, Kyu Collective and You & Mr. Jones, an ad-tech startup formed by ex-Havas CEO David Jones. Mic’s other backers have included Axel Springer, Advancit Capital and Lerer Hippeau Ventures.

The funding brings the New York startup, founded in 2011, to a total of $52 million raised to date. With the funding, Time Warner Investments SVP Allison Goldberg is joining Mic’s board.

Mic says more than 66 million unique monthly users read or view its content. The company last week — in a move mimicking Vice Media’s strategy — announced plans to launch nine new channels covering different audience segments.

The company claims to already reach two-thirds of U.S. millennials each month. That audience reach, “combined with its credibility, positions Mic to win on tvOS, just as it has on social,” Lightspeed partner Jeremy Liew, said in a statement. “We’re excited to double down on this investment.”

Apple’s tvOS is the operating system it created for the fourth-generation Apple TV set-top. Last year, Mic acquired Hyper, a Berlin-based developer of “video magazine” apps for short-form news and lifestyle features, and the Hyper team launched a curated-video app on Apple TV.

Mic’s new channels include Slay, about issues affecting young women’s lives; pop-culture channel Hype; Payoff, about personal finance; Strut, which aims to embrace an “inclusive new understanding of personal style”; The Movement, covering social issues and activism; The Future Is Now, a guide to personal technology, social media and science; and Multiplayer, covering video games and game culture.

The headquarters of Mic (as in “microphone”) are in New York, and the company has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Kiev, Stockholm and Berlin.

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