In February, Draper Fisher Jurvetson deepened its bet on a hybrid portal/advertising network aimed primarily at women, participating in an $84.6 million Series D round in Glam Media Inc. Now the firm is taking its experience in the growing sector to the other end of the field, leading a $6 million Series B round in the online sports community and branded vertical ad network Yardbarker Inc.
Joined by previous investors Labrador Ventures, Baseline Ventures, former NFL star Ronnie Lott's SC Investments and others, DFJ put up money to expand Yardbarker's engineering and sales efforts to capitalize on growth over the last year that resulted in more than 6 million unique users in February. Yardbarker provides a social networking community of 300 independednt sites for rabid sports fans, featuring draws including hosted blogs by celebrity athletes such as Philadelpha Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, Detroit Tigers pitcher Dontrelle Willis, and highly touted but injured rookie center Greg Oden of the Portland Trailblazers.
Like Glam Media, Yardbarker's model is to share advertising revenue with hosted and affiliated sites and aggregate additional properties to attract targeted advertising from clients that currently include 2K Sports, vitaminwater, and Sony PlayStation. In announcing the new funding, Yardbarker Co-founder and CEO Pete Vlastelica, said DFJ's consumer Internet experience, and particularly its record with Glam, are expected to be helpful as the business model expands. Sports news sites have always been a big draw for male consumers, but Yardbarker is aiming at a younger, more technologically savvy and racially diverse audience than some of the more established and less interactive Web properties. --Clifford Carlsen
See Feb. 25 story from Tech Confidential
See April 3 press release from Yardbarker Inc.
For more see TechCrunch
Continue reading below
