Rumor: Federated Media Takes $50 Million On A $200 Million Valuation

federated-media-logo.pngFederated Media (FM) has rumored to have raised $50 million from Oak Hill Capital Partners on a $200 million valuation, according to VentureBeat. Total funding for Federated Media to-date would be $57.4 million.

So what would Federated Media do with $50 million: Invest in sites. From a March interview:

Battelle: Well, I can’t say specifically what we might do with any money that we might raise, should we do a fund-raising round. But I think there are an awful lot of opportunities in this emerging field and it’s just good to have access to capital to execute any reasonable ideas that we might have. It’s a very quickly changing market and it needs financing. I mean individual sites need financing and we want to be a good partner for all of our sites.

Here’s what Michael said at the time:

Here’s what I think he really means: They’ll either buy sites outright, or guarantee revenue, or guarantee revenue in exchange for equity. A publisher wouldn’t consider Federated Media an attractive investor versus venture capitalists simply because it would mean tying their revenue to them over the long term.

VentureBeat talks about expanding the business and Facebook apps, but does FM really need more money to build out its core business? There’s every chance FM will be going down the Glam path in owning or part owning some sites and acting as the ad broker for others.

disclosure: FM sells ads for TechCrunch