• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia
Tech

Bustle Raises $11.5 Million More in Venture Funding

By
Erin Griffith
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Erin Griffith
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 10, 2016, 9:00 AM ET
Jonica Moore Studio, Courtesy Bustle.

Bustle, a New York City-based news site aimed at millennial women, has raised $11.5 million in new funding led by Saban Capital, with participation from GGV Capital and existing investors General Catalyst Partners, Time Warner Investments, and Social Capital. Richard Yen of Saban Capital will join the company’s board.

The media company, founded in 2013, has amassed an audience of 32 million, most of which are young women between the ages of 18 and 34, according to comScore. The site’s advertisers, including Campbells and Adidas, purchase packages that include a mix of native advertising, traditional display ads, and video. Last year, Bustle hit its revenue goal of $10 million. The company expects to “substantially outperform” its goal of $20 million for 2016, according to CEO and founder Bryan Goldberg.

The past two years have seen a frenzy of venture investment in new media companies. The biggest players—BuzzFeed, Vox Media, and Vice—each raised more than $100 million last year, while smaller companies like Mic and Refinery29 racked up respective $17 million and $50 million rounds as well. Business Insider sold to Axel Springer for $343 million, or a multiple of 11 times its revenue.

Subscribe to Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily tech newsletter.

Bustle has previously raised $27 million in venture backing. Goldberg is calling the new money “confidence capital.” “We didn’t need to go do the $50 million raise that some other sites have been doing,” he says.

The money will go toward investing in experiments like video on social media outlets (Facebook videos can’t easily monetizable right now, for example), publishing on new platforms, hiring more support staff for the sales team, and hiring more engineering talent. The last point is particularly crucial. “Technology matters a lot more for media than it did two years ago,” Goldberg says.

Specifically, media companies must build ways to easily distribute their content onto multiple platforms. Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages program is one distribution platform that has become a large source of web traffic for Bustle.

Bustle also launched its own app in the Apple App Store last year. So far 250,000 readers have downloaded it. Goldberg says the number may seem small—a news app isn’t going to go viral—but touts a 4.5-star rating in the App Store and an average session time of seven minutes. “Apple is a real platform,” he says. “If you ignore it, it’s a loss to you.”

Likewise, in November 2015, Bustle launched Romper, a site aimed at millennial moms, which now has 3.5 million monthly unique visitors, according to Bustle’s internal numbers, and a dedicated staff of eight.

About the Author
By Erin Griffith
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • Future 50
  • World’s Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
Sections
  • Finance
  • Leadership
  • Success
  • Tech
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Environment
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Health
  • Retail
  • Lifestyle
  • Politics
  • Newsletters
  • Magazine
  • Features
  • Commentary
  • Mpw
  • CEO Initiative
  • Conferences
  • Personal Finance
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
About Us
  • About Us
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Diversity And Inclusion
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map

© 2025 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.


Latest in Tech

AIautonomy
Waymo chaos during San Francisco power outage likely due to ‘operational management failure’ instead of software flaw, expert says
By Jaimie Ding and The Associated PressDecember 22, 2025
1 hour ago
BankingBank of America
Bank of America’s Moynihan says AI’s economic benefit is ‘kicking in more’
By Katherine Chiglinsky, Steve Dickson and BloombergDecember 22, 2025
4 hours ago
man in suit
Personal FinanceCryptocurrency
Notorious crypto conman Sam Bankman-Fried has a prison passion project: giving legal advice to other inmates
By Carlos GarciaDecember 22, 2025
4 hours ago
AI nude
CybersecurityEducation
13-year-old girl attacked a boy showing an AI-generated nude image of her. She was expelled
By Heather Hollingsworth, Jack Brook and The Associated PressDecember 22, 2025
5 hours ago
AITech
In 2000 Larry Page said Google was ‘nowhere near’ the ultimate search engine—25 years later, Gemini might be close
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezDecember 22, 2025
5 hours ago
Photo of Colin Angle
InnovationAutomation
‘It’s a cage match’: Beleaguered iRobot founder says the biggest reason why the Roomba-maker failed was because of growing Chinese competition
By Sasha RogelbergDecember 22, 2025
7 hours ago

Most Popular

placeholder alt text
Future of Work
Meet a 55-year-old automotive technician in Arkansas who didn’t care if his kids went to college: ‘There are options’
By Muskaan ArshadDecember 21, 2025
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Success
Multimillionaire musician Will.i.am says work-life balance is for people 'working on someone else’s dream'—he grinds from 5-to-9 after his 9-to-5
By Orianna Rosa RoyleDecember 21, 2025
1 day ago
placeholder alt text
Success
Billionaire philanthropy's growing divide: Mark Zuckerberg stops funding immigration reform as MacKenzie Scott doubles down on DEI
By Ashley LutzDecember 22, 2025
6 hours ago
placeholder alt text
Success
Former U.S. Secret Service agent says bringing your authentic self to work stifles teamwork: 'You don’t get high performers, you get sloppiness'
By Sydney LakeDecember 22, 2025
8 hours ago
placeholder alt text
Future of Work
A Walmart employee nearly doubled her pay after entering its pipeline for skilled tradespeople. 'I was able to move out of my parents' house'
By Anne D'Innocenzio and The Associated PressDecember 20, 2025
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Economy
Even if the Supreme Court rules Trump's global tariffs are illegal, refunds are unlikely because that would be 'very complicated,' Hassett says
By Jason MaDecember 21, 2025
1 day ago