News for Authors

Bertelsmann Backs Digital Start-Ups

August, 2013

Are you familiar with Food52, BarkBox, or American Reading Company? These innovative emerging companies share something in common: Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI), the venture capital arm of Bertelsmann, has made investments in all of them. BDMI takes minority equity stakes in early-stage companies on the digital media landscape in North America and Europe.  With offices in New York and Berlin, BDMI has its radar attuned to new companies that show entrepreneurial and game-changing promise, and can benefit from Bertelsmann’s worldwide network of diverse businesses.

BDMI actively seeks out the perspective of various teams at Random House to evaluate how portfolio companies can add value to our businesses and author brands—giving us an invaluable glimpse into the hot media technology start-up scene.  Our marketers often collaborate with BDMI on projects to leverage new technology and opportunities that can aid a campaign. This ranges from Fodor’s work with Skimlinks on affiliate marketing to partnerships with the American Reading Company to promote authors and titles through literacy programs.

BDMI identifies emerging companies with innovative digital media technology, strong leadership, a competitive advantage, and an engaged community.   A few BDMI companies you’ll want to know more about:

American Reading Company is a provider of Common Core State Standards–based school solutions and professional development services created by teachers, curriculum specialists, and literacy activists. The company’s success in transforming school cultures to create sustainable reading achievement has been featured on the CBS Evening News.

Food52, the leading cookbook community that brings home and professional chefs together from all over to exchange recipes and ideas and to support each other in the kitchen. Food52 creates cookbooks, generates food projects, and recently launched their ecommerce initiative, Provisions, bringing great recipes and products together.

Skimlinks, an affiliate marketing company, started as Skimbit, a social decision-making site. In an effort to earn more from the site, its founder tried affiliate marketing—with a twist. Today, Skimlinks technology  detects product  references in content and links them accurately to the most relevant retailer of that product.

StyleHaul is the largest original video network on YouTube for style, fashion, and beauty. The network aggregates and manages over 2,700 tailored style-guru channels and over 25 channels of original programming under a single social fashion video platform. Serving a global audience of over 48 million monthly uniques, StyleHaul is a strategic destination for brands.