• by Sara Guaglione , April 7, 2017

Millennial-focused digital publisher Mic and magazine-reading app Blendle announced today they have received funding.

Mic has raised a series C round of $21 million, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as strategic investments from Time Warner Investments and ad agencies Kyu Collective and You & Mr. Jones.

The new funding will be used to expand Mic’s nine new verticals and video production, ranging from topics such as women’s issues to personal finance.

This brings the company’s total funding to $52 million.

According to a spokesperson, this investments bridges a gap between agencies and publishers. Kyu Collective and You & Mr. Jones can help Mic’s advertising business, which the company claims tripled revenue year-over-year.

"Mic is at the forefront of the revolution happening in marketing technology," stated David Jones, CEO of You & Mr. Jones, noting its "powerful storytelling and high-quality scalable digital content."

Time Warner Investment’s ‎Group managing director and SVP Allison Goldberg will join Mic’s board of directors.

Over the last year, Mic has increased its audience by sixfold, with video accounting for more than 75% of daily views. "Over 66 million unique people read or watch Mic each month across platforms, the company claims."

Separately, Dutch magazine-reading service Blendle has received new investments from Financial Times owner Nikkei and Amsterdam-based investment fund INKEF Capital. This comes just a year after the service debuted in the U.S., with partners including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Time Inc., among others.

The amount of the investments was not disclosed.

Blendle’s service is based around micropayments, where readers pay a small amount of money, ranging from a few pennies to a dollar, to access magazine content on the app.

Blendle pays transaction costs when a user reaches a certain amount of purchases, instead of for each micropayment. The publisher receives 70% of the revenue. The content is ad-free. If a reader is unsatisfied with the articles they paid for, they can request to receive an immediate refund.

Currently, Blendle claims an estimated 1 million users worldwide.