Ankler Media raised $1.5 million at a speed-round event for startups to pitch investors, amounting to a $20 million valuation for the entertainment news company, Axios reported Tuesday.
Richard Rushfield’s buzzy email newsletter, launched in 2017, has since moved to Substack and steadily grown, adding former THR editor Janice Min as co-owner late last year and other staff to broaden The Ankler digest into a Hollywood-focused Ankler Media.
The company raised the $1.5 million seed round at a Y Combinator “Demo Day,” in which startups pitch investors with a deck and a 60-second video. The array of investors includes Dick Parsons’ Imagination Capital, Goodwater Capital, Pioneer Fund, FilKor Capital and several individual investors.
“Its a real pressure test on a business,” Min told Axios. “You boil down your entire message to one slide with four points and a 60-second video.”
The money will be used for additional staff and resource expansion.
Ankler Media told Axios that paid subscriptions grew 92% since Min joined, and has a total of 22,000 subscriptions, both free and paid.