US-based online media brand Axios has secured $20m in series B funding from investors including media company NBCUniversal, co-founder and president Roy Schwartz told the Wall Street Journal on Friday.
Venture capital firms Greycroft Partners, E.ventures and Lerer Hippeau Ventures co-led the round, which also featured media and technology holding company WndrCo, investment fund Emerson Collective and Greg Penner, the chairman of retail group Walmart.
Axios launched in January this year and covers business, technology and politics, typically concentrating on short, fact-focused news bites rather than lengthy, in-depth features. It also runs 11 newsletters with a combined audience of some 200,000 subscribers.
The startup had raised $10m of funding from NBCUniversal, Emerson Collective, Greycroft Partners, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Greg Penner at the time of its launch.
The company plans to build its audience, which numbered 6 million unique visitors in September 2017 according to media market analytics provider ComScore, before installing a paywall in late 2018, Schwartz said.
The funding will go to product development and the enhancement of the company’s data analysis capabilities, as well as an increase in its staff numbers from 89 to about 150 as it seeks to expand the size of its audience and scope of its coverage.