• The Seattle Times, Tuesday, January 18, 2011 2:03 PM

Sure to mystify the more practical among us, Seattle Web startup Cheezburger has raised $30 million led by Boulder-based Foundry Group, along with Seattle's Madrona Venture Group, Avalon Ventures and SoftBank Capital. Combining painfully-cute animal pictures with lobotomized captions, the company's network of sites now attracts over 16.5 million visitors, and 375 million page views, a month. "In advance of the funding, Cheezburger built up its leadership last summer, adding a full-time chief financial officer as [founder Ben Huh] plotted expanding into New York and Los Angeles," reports The Seattle Times.

"The funding ... cements Cheezburger's position in the major league of Web startups -- at least in Seattle, where it's rare for consumer-focused ventures to raise that much capital." But, where can Cheezburger possibly go from here? Only up, according to Brad Feld, Foundry's managing director. "Already challenging the online traffic of traditional media companies, Cheezburger has an opportunity to surpass the industry heavyweights to become the world's largest humor network," he said.

Read the whole story at The Seattle Times »