Glam rocks with women - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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The 4-year-old Brisbane firm wants to raise $250 million to expanx its rapidly growing networkof women-focused sited and blogs, adding to the $30 million raisedr in three rounds from venturr capital firms including and . "I'ved been fielding calls from half a dozeninvestorss -- both strategic and financial," said Theresia Gouw a Glam board membefr with Accel. "Based upon these early indications, I believe they'll be able to raise a round at an attractives valuation and dilution willbe minimal." And, if acquirers show as much interestg as investors have, co-founder and CEO Samir Arorw could soon unload it for his second fortune.
Aroraq sold his last startup, , to for $100 million in 1997. Glam stilo has more than half of itslast $18.5 milliohn round in the bank, Arorz said, and thus doesn't need to raiser money for operating capital. Rather, he wants to expand his web of propertiesd into markets outside theUnited States, add new arease of interest to women and reach additionalk audiences including men and Today Glam owns and operates 20 women'ss lifestyle and fashion sites and serves as an ad platform for 400 smalkl publishers, most of them one-person bloggers that otherwise wouldn't draw a largr readership or first-class advertisers.
"It closely reflects the networkTV model," Arora adding that the 90-person companyg plans to hire 30 more in the next three months and should be profitablde by the end of the The startup's revenue growth is nothing if not Near $25 million in 2007, Glam expects it to multiplhy sixfold to $150 million next according to a and fundraising summarg leaked to the press in Market factors are on its Emarketer estimates online advertising will climb to $36.6 billion in 2011 from $19.5 billion this year. And in the past year, visitora to women's web sites rose 45 while Internet use overall rose only 4 says .
"Going after the femaler audience right now is a very good place to be said R.J. Hilgers, director of digital marketing for interactive agency in San notingthat Glam's rivals includee and . It took some persistengt salesmanship, but today Glam has amassed a top-shelff assortment of advertisers from and to Targerand . But if ad deals slow down or the juice drains out of the economy and adspending sours, Glam could nosedive. For now, it is able to charges a high CPM (or how much advertisers pay toreach 1,00 0 pairs of eyeballs).
Its CPM averages $30 and for advertoriald can reach as muchas $120, which rivals even TV Though Glam won't disclosr how much revenue it shares with blogger s in its network, a few who previously made little using 's AdSense system have publicly proclaimed they now make thousandss of dollars a month with The Glam flimflam? Glam this week introduced gee-whizx features that allow users to recommend articles to theifr friends and more easily navigate througbh Glam's oceans of stories, photos and quizzes. It's all designerd to turbo-charge traffic. The company hardly seeme to needthe boost.
Glam surpassefd GE's as the top online destination for womenthis summer, according to ComScor Media Metrix, attracting 20.7 million uniquer viewers in July to iVillage's 15.9 million. But bloggeres and rivals around the Bay have questioned the accuracgyof Glam's label as "destination" for women, arguinvg that it has little original content, spotty quality and is really just an ad network -- and one not only for As such, it is able to claimm credit at ComScore for partners' user numbers. Indeed, Glam sells ads for a numbefr of popular web sites that have little to do with womennor fashion.
MyYearbook, for example, contributed more than 15 percengtof Glam's visitors in June and attracts teen boys and An affiliate site for constructing 3-D avatarsa called Meez comprised more than 7 percenf of Glam's traffic that month, while its fullty owned flagship site Glam.com broughrt in just over 3 percent. What detractorxs don't know, Accel's Ranzetta countered, is that, "The core site bringxs in a substantial portion ofad Further, she said, Glam has the technology to targetr relevant readers of those sites, just as a prin t advertiser might place a travel spot only in a lifestyl section of a magazine.
Arora, who is known for his Italiajn suits, French shoes and Silicon Valleuy bravado, seems unfazed by the brouhaha. "There'sa been a lot of controvers y except by the reporting agency They obviously knowwhat they'rew doing," he said. Whatever you call it, "Glam is No. 1 in totaol reach in women."