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Shonda Rhimes and Tyra Banks skim TheSkimm—and are now funding it

The popular email newsletter has now closed its Series C round and tacked on a few notable, albeit atypical, investors.

Shonda Rhimes and Tyra Banks skim TheSkimm—and are now funding it

[Photo: Andy Katz/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images; Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images]

BY Pavithra Mohan0 minute read

In March, we learned that TheSkimm was raising a cool $12 million, thanks to an investment from Google Ventures. The popular email newsletter has now closed its Series C round and tacked on a few notable, albeit atypical, investors—Shonda Rhimes and Tyra Banks.

In fact, the round boasts a majority of female investors, from journalist Willow Bay to VCs like Jesse Draper, Linnea Roberts, and Hope Taitz. The new funding will go toward hiring across product and data analytics, TheSkimm told Variety, as well as doubling down on the company’s “No Excuses” campaign, which reportedly registered 110,000 voters before the 2016 election.

Rhimes and Banks are apparently fans of the newsletter, but their contributions likely also signal a bigger investment in TheSkimm’s video and audio ambitions. In 2016, the company launched Skimm Studios, which has since created two shows for Facebook Watch, the on-demand video platform Facebook rolled out last year; TheSkimm has also released another web series and a podcast. The company wouldn’t offer details on how its shiny new investors and cash pile—now $29 million in total—might play into its production business, but for now, I’d suggest keeping an eye on Netflix.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pavithra Mohan is a staff writer for Fast Company. More


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