Latino digital multichannel network MiTú raised $10 million in second-round funding, led by L.A.-based venture capital firm Upfront Ventures, one of the original investors in Maker Studios.
MiTú said it will use the new funding, which brings it to about $13 million raised, to build out production facilities in Los Angeles and Mexico City, as well as expand its engineering and sales teams. Other investors, which also contributed to the round, include the Chernin Group; Allen DeBevoise, chairman of Machinima; and Advancit Capital, the VC firm founded by Shari Redstone and Jason Ostheimer.
Upfront Ventures was an investor in Maker Studios, which Disney acquired earlier this spring in a deal worth up to $950 million. The Disney/Maker deal has spurred a wave of interest in YouTube MCNs by traditional media conglomerates.
“Having been an early and prolific investor in online video, I came to the conclusion that the future will be built around strong vertical content channels,” Mark Suster, managing partner of Upfront Ventures, said in a statement. “When I met the team at MiTú I knew they understood the mixture of Latino meets online video better than anybody else I had met and became excited to be a partner with them.”
MiTú was founded in 2012 by industry veterans Doug Greiff, Beatriz Acevedo and Roy Burstin. The company claims to deliver more than 400 million monthly video views of content from 1,200 partners, with 40 million YouTube subscribers. Earlier this year, the company inked a content-licensing pact with AOL to provide Latino-focused digital video content, to further expand MiTu’s reach beyond YouTube.
The MCN’s variety talk show “El Show with Chuey Martinez” is currently being adapted into a latenight series for Turner Broadcasting System’s HLN.
Upfront Ventures manages more than $1 billion across four funds. Its investments have included TrueCar, Envestnet, Overture and CitySearch.
