Political news site the Huffington Post has reportedly raised USD15m in a third round of funding from Oak Investment Partners.
Rumours that the blog was seeking more funding this year began circulating in June, when Silicon Valley Insider said it was in talks with investors to raise around USD10m. The report, which quoted "sources", said the investment would value the site at roughly USD80m.
Although founder Arianna Huffington has so far refused to comment on the story, the USD15m funding round places the firm at a higher value of USD100m, a huge amount for a digital news site.
The Huffington Post launched in 2005 and publishes articles from more than 40 full-time staff and a network of 1,800 bloggers. It completed a first USD5m funding round in 2006 and then raised a further USD5m last year from return backers SoftBank Capital and Greycroft Partners.
The blog reportedly plans to use the latest funding to develop local news rooms across the US and increase its use of investigative journalism.
However, bloggers note that the Huffington Post may struggle to monetise the new additions, especially given the state of the US ad market. The Wired blog says: "Scaling local content in a shrinking ad market will be tough, and hunting down scoops can be a costly pursuit, especially for a site that specialises in commentary rather than breaking news."
The blog will also have to focus on keeping reader levels high, after achieving a peak in traffic during the November presidential election. The Huffington Post was the most popular standalone news site in September with 4.5m visitors, a 472% increase from the same month in 2007, according to HitSearch.
StrategyEye's related companies: Oak Investment Partners, Softbank Capital, Huffington Post, Greycroft Partners
