Next New Networks, the company that publishes thematic channels of video online, including Barely Political (which features Obama-cheering Obama Girl), has raised more capital to keep expanding.
It has taken $15 million more from Velocity Interactive and Goldman Sachs, we’ve just learned. This adds to the $8 million it raised a year ago (see our coverage).
The company now has 12 main channels in its network, with 33 million video views in February, a pace that suggests strong growth from last year, when the site had more than 100 million video views.
We reached a company representative, and she would not comment on how the company’s revenue is coming along. Getting advertisers to pay good money for online video has proven tougher than some have expected, in part because advertisements are disruptive, regardless where they’re placed within a video. However, Next New is pursuing a strategy of distributing its videos as extensively as possible, for example today officially announcing a deal to place its video channels in sidebars along AOL-owned sites. Next New did say it has signed some ad deals in the fourth quarter last year, specifically around its car channel.
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Velocity, the new firm formed by former AOL CEO Jon Miller and former News Corp. executive Ross Levinsohn, has focused heavily on video investments. Velocity has backed Motricity (see our coverage), which distributes mobile applications. The firm has also invested in Generate (our coverage) and BroadBand Enterprises (our coverage).
Joining Goldman and Velocity in the round are previous Next New Network investors Bob Pittman, Saban Media Group and Spark Capital.
