FORBES: Investors Bet Big On Tech’s It-Girl As Brit Morin Announces $6.3 Million Series A
It’s just 18 months since the LA Timesdubbed Brit Morinthe “Martha Stewart of Silicon Valley” and while she’s spent that time building a branded empire of lifestyle content for the DIY set, investors are confident—to the tune of more than $7 million—that Morin can pull multiple revenue streams out of her craft-centric web property Brit + Co.
The Wednesday announcement of a $6.3 million Series A led byOak Investment Partners with Index, Lerer and Aileen Lee’sCowboy Ventures follows a $1.25 million seed round last spring. Second-time angel Marissa Mayer has also joined the round, and if the high-wattage investors impress you, they’re likely as star-struck by Morin, the wife of Path founder Dave Morin and regular on who’s who lists of tech’s coolest kids.
It begs the question or whether in Silicon Valley, the company you keep is every bit as important as the company you’re building. Brit is a former employee of both Apple AAPL -1.2% and Google GOOG +0.94% but it might be her social connections–including Mr. and Mrs. Mark Zuckerberg and Jessica and Aaron Sittig– that stack the deck in her favor. Husband Dave was an early Facebooker whose own investors take top billing in the Valley, from Kevin Rose to Tim Draper and salesforce.com’s Marc Benoiff.That said, in an interview last month with BusinessInsider Brit insisted that the couple “Do not open doors for each other” in terms of investments or business advantage. “We’re just like any other couple who have different networks and similar networks and who just know a bunch of the same and different people,” she hedged.
Still Morin concedes she had no trouble closing the round, large for a female-focused content company as young as hers, particularly in a landscape ofincreasingly tightening Series A investments. “We’ve been picking folks for a month or two,” she says. “It’s been interesting because as a company we straddle tech and media so I was looking to find partners who straddled both worlds. And we really did.” Oak Investment Partners has a portfolio rich in media properties while Index (also an investor in Path) brags forward-thinking commerce like Nasty Gal and maker bazaar Etsy. Lerer Ventures brings the experience of Thrillist founder Ben Lerer, who has himself built a branded commerce initiative,Jack Threads, around what was once just a frat-centric newsletter.
