VC Roundup: FM Publishing, New Leaf & Nixon Peabody
Some scattered VC notes as we head into the weekend: — * FM Publishing, the online ad network run by John Battelle, has raised $4.5 million in Series B funding, according to a regulatory filing. Return backers include New Enterprise Associates and Omidyar Network.
Context & Ripple Effects
John Battelle has been building FM Publishing in public since at least late 2005, when he walked through the company's model in an interview with Performancing, and his broader case — that query and behavior data can predict what people do next — dates to his July 2006 writing on search. The $4.5 million Series B, disclosed through a regulatory filing rather than a press release, is the point where that thesis becomes a funded operating business.
The signal in the round is who is writing the check: New Enterprise Associates and Omidyar Network are both return backers, so this is insiders doubling down rather than a new lead pricing the company. The story also traveled beyond PE Hub on the same day, with VentureBeat picking it up under the Federated Media name.
First-order effects
- FM Publishing enters the fall with $4.5 million of fresh Series B capital to scale its blog ad network, and NEA and Omidyar Network deepen their existing exposure instead of recycling shares to new investors.
Second-order effects
- A better-capitalized Federated Media strengthens the network's hand with both advertisers and the independent bloggers whose inventory it sells, raising the bar for smaller or unfunded rivals trying to aggregate the same sites.
Third-order effects
- If Battelle's premise holds — that audience data pooled across many independent sites predicts consumer behavior — ad dollars migrate toward networks that own the aggregation and data layer, structurally weakening standalone publishers' direct sales efforts.
The trend: Mid-2007 venture money is consolidating around intermediaries that aggregate independent web publishers' ad inventory, turning Battelle's data-prediction argument into a funded category.