Evolve Media Sells Leading Female Media Property SheKnows.com to Private Equity Firm

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Evolve Media Corp., an integrated digital media company and vertical publisher, announced today that it has completed the sale of its women’s media property, SheKnows.com, to a private equity firm.

“With this proven record of acquiring and growing publishing assets, we see a real opportunity to aggressively seek out new M&A opportunities that can help us continue to grow our company.”

Originally a five-person company when acquired by Evolve in 2006, Evolve spent the past 7 years layering its proprietary platform of publishing products and marketing tools onto SheKnows to help graduate the asset from a small web property of 600,000 unique visitors into a leading women's media business that attracts more than 41 million unique visitors each month (comScore, November 2012) and employs more than 100 people. Under Evolve’s leadership, SheKnows earned some of the most prestigious awards for its premium content and original video production, including 2011 and 2012 Emmy® Awards, back-to-back OMMA Awards for Website Excellence, as well as numerous Digiday Video and Publishing Awards.

“A transaction of this size further evidences the power of Evolve’s publishing platform and business model,” says Brian Fitzgerald, President and co-founder of Evolve. “We have demonstrated a proficiency in identifying under-leveraged web assets in the right space, which we are then able to acquire and successfully integrate onto our platform, growing significantly the audience, brand equity and revenue for each property.”

Apart from SheKnows, Evolve continues to own and operate more than 50 enthusiast web properties organized under two vertical publishing units, CraveOnline Media for men and totallyher for women. CraveOnline Media includes owned and operated properties CraveOnline.com, GameRevolution.com, Sherdog.com, and ComingSoon.net (amongst others), which collectively serve as the web’s #1 male lifestyle publisher reaching 33 million unique visitors per month (comScore, November 2012), and totallyher media, Evolve’s female vertical that includes owned and operated websites Momtastic.com and theFashionSpot.com and reaches more than 31 million unique visitors a month (comScore, November 2012).

The SheKnows transaction marks the second major sale of a publishing asset by Evolve, which had previously sold Quizilla.com to Viacom in 2006. Evolve plans to invest the proceeds of the SheKnows transaction into new website acquisitions as well as continued investments to support its publishing platform, which includes a number of technologies such as Crowd Ignite, a leading content and audience marketing platform, and Springboard Video, an online video platform that powers online video for over 500 websites.

“Evolve has spent the last seven years developing SheKnows into the fastest growing online women’s property and a sale of the asset to private equity is a true testament to Evolve’s ability to build lasting brands,” says Aaron Broder, CEO and co-founder of Evolve. “With this proven record of acquiring and growing publishing assets, we see a real opportunity to aggressively seek out new M&A opportunities that can help us continue to grow our company.”

About Evolve Media:

Evolve Media (http://www.evolvedigital.com/) is an integrated digital media company focused on publishing, vertical ad sales and marketing services, and lastly video solutions. Evolve specializes in vertical publishing for men and women with its two flagship publishers, CraveOnline Media and totallyher Media. CraveOnline Media is the largest male lifestyle publisher and home to CraveOnline.com, GameRevolution.com and LiveOutdoors.com. While Evolve’s female vertical, totallyher, houses theFashionSpot.com, Momtastic.com and Teenspot.com. SpringBoard Video is Evolve’s video division, offering video publishing technology and scalable premium advertising solutions.

Evolve offers brand marketers digital brand campaigns that can achieve both significant reach among key audiences and contextual environments that together have been proven to increase key brand effectiveness. To drive superior results, Evolve offers best-in-class integration and creative solutions tailored to specific brand objectives. Evolve’s primary mission is to provide marketers with unique, integrated creative programs across branded consumer content sites, allowing a brand to get engaged with a passionate, influencer audience in a way that converts them into a brand evangelist. Moreover, Evolve can leverage these capabilities against a platform of over 55 premium web destinations, reaching 300 million people globally each month.