In an effort to leverage its booming traffic built on covering political news, Huffington Post - started in 2005 by the ubiquitous and indefatigable Arianna Huffington - is raising significant expansion capital.
Huffington Post - the top political news blogging site - is seeking to close $20 million, at a post-money valuation of $110 million, according to PaidContent. The lead investor is Oak Investment Partners, which has also invested in fast-growing Web 2.0 startups, such as Federated Media, Demand Media and MobiTV.
The newly-raised funds will be used to expand HuffPo's empire beyond politics, a segment of coverage that's put Huffington Post, also referred to as HuffPo, on the map. In September, it ranked No. 1 of stand-alone political blog sites and blogs, with 4.5 million unique visitors, up 472% from the same period a year ago, according to ComScore. Politico.com saw 2.4 million visitors, up 344%) while DrudgeReport attracted 2.1 million visitors (up 70%).
Huffington Post plans to use the capital to move into local news and investigative journalism, according to the Times UK.
