Based in New York City, Dering Hall, is a digital platform company that focuses on home design. Dering Hall has raised $1.4 million in a new round of venture capital funding. Investors in the seed round include Lerer Ventures, Softbank Capital, Hearst Corporation, and several other investors.
Roku is a digital TV entertainment company that has raised $60 million in funding led by Fidelity. Hearst Corporation also participated in this round of funding. Previous investors that participated in this round include BSkyB, News Corporation, and Dish Network. Roku has raised a total of $130 million thus far.
Hearst Ventures is the investment arm of publication company Hearst Corporation. Hearst Ventures is making a minority investment in Science Inc., a Los Angeles based tech studio and incubator. Hearst is the sole investor in this round of funding. The investment is rumored to be worth a 20% stake for $30 million according to AllThingsD.
Hearst Corporation, the parent company of publications like Car & Driver, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Car & Driver, claims to have around 800,000 paying digital subscribers. These numbers were announced in a letter to employees at the company by Hearst President David Carey. This figure includes monthly subscribers across all of their titles on iPads, Nooks, Androids, etc. Mr. Carey claims that this figure is “the highest in the industry.”
Even though the iPad has been around for two years, it has not made much of an impact on the digital magazine market. Digital magazines make up only 1% of the industry circulation total and the publishers know that this could be a problem. This is why Next Issue Media has announced an Android app, which encourages users to read more publications on their tablet. Next Issue is a joint venture between five magazine publishers: Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredeth, News Corp. and Time Inc.
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HootSuite is a social media management company that launched three years ago. Since then they have grew to almost 4 million users with $75 million in revenue. HootSuite’s founder Ryan Holmes said that he and several shareholders have sold $20 million worth of shares to OMERS Ventures, which is an investment arm of one of Canada’s largest pension plans. This is one of the biggest venture capital deals in Canada.
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Hearst magazines are now offering group discounts through a platform designed Group Commerce, beginning with Road & Track and Car and Driver. AllThingsD reports that the deals will later be offered in other magazines, like Marie Claire, Esquire and Cosmopolitan. The discounts will be found in the magazines themselves, but also in each magazine’s online presence.
The Hearst Corporation has agreed to buy 102 publications from French company Lagardère in a deal that is worth $890 million. Lagardère has been wanting to shed their international operations and focus more on their domestic business. Heart will become the second largest domestic magazine as a result of the deal. Hearst will gain the American edition of Elle, Car and Driver, Road & Track, and Woman’s Day.
