Entertainment Media Brand Whistle Sports Closes $28 Million
Whistle Sports, an entertainment media brand that creates, curates, and distributes content for young audiences, raised $28 million in a Series D equity round in progress led by Aser, a global investment company founded by Andrea Radrizzani, and includes investments from Liberty Media, Emil Capital, and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo. The capital augments previous funding rounds totaling $100 million comprised of investments by NBC Sports, Sky Sports, Tegna and UK-based venture-capital firm Beringea.
Whistle Sports launched in 2014 and targets young, post-Millennials. According to the company, its aggregate social audience of 450 million subscribers, followers and fans view videos across the network’s 2,000 channels 1.7 billion times a month. With a library of 560,000 videos, Whistle Sports has a rapidly growing revenue stream with a 52% year-over-year growth rate and 132% compound annual growth rate.
Whistle Sports plans to use the investment to expand its catalogue of free and premium original content with brand partners and creators including Dude Perfect – the team behind the third most subscribed creator YouTube channel – DevinSuperTramp, and The F2 on both OTT and Whistle Sports distribution platforms.