Mitú Rehires Roy Burstin as CEO and Raises $10 Million in Funding

After laying off 30 percent of its staff in July, company says it will be profitable in 2019

roy burstin mitu
Courtesy of mitu

Mitú — a Latino-focused production company — announced a $10 million round of funding and the reappointment of Roy Burstin as the company’s CEO. The funds will be invested in scaling the company’s commerce business, improving its technology platforms, and expanding into new content areas.

The investment round follows a rough year for the company, which suffered after short-form video platforms like Verizon’s go90 and Comcast’s Mashable — two companies Mitú regularly sold content to — struggled to gain traction among consumers. As a result, the digital media company laid off about 30 percent of its staff in July, and CEO Herb Scannell resigned from his position.

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Mitú has since revised its priorities and shifted focus from growth to profitability. The company is now focusing on its portfolio of media products and commerce, two revenue areas it says it is seeing significant traction:  Mitú says it will roll out a set of programmatic advertising products and also expand its brand beyond content, through physical goods. Based on this new focus, the company expects to be profitable by end of 2019.

Burstin — who resigned from his role as CEO in 2017 when Scannell took over — has been brought back to help lead the digital media company and its 65 full-time employees.

Launched in 2012, Mitú has raised $52 million to date in funding. This latest funding round was led by Leap Global Partners and included investors such as Upfront Ventures, marketing agency WPP, and Verizon Ventures.

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