TheWrap raises $2 million for media news

Entertainment and media business news blog gets second round led by Maveron

TheWrap, a blog providing the latest news related to entertainment industry news, has closed a $2 million second round of funding, according to founder and editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman. This latest round was led by Maveron, a firm founded in the late 1990s by Dan Levitan, formerly managing director at Schroder Wertheim & Co., and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Investors that contributed to the company's first round of $500,000 also contributed this time around.

Barely a year old, TheWrap has also just announced new partnerships with both CNN and a Southern California public radio station, KPCC.

Waxman will regularly go on-the-air with host Howard Kurtz on his CNN show, "Reliable Sources," to discuss the business of the entertainment and media industries. Similarly, Waxman will be featured on Patt Morrison’s KPCC public affairs show biweekly. Additionally, TheWrap will now share online content with CNN and KPCC, and vice versa.

“I have huge respect both for Howie Kurtz and Patt Morrison, who are friends and colleagues, and I could not be more excited about sharing TheWrap’s perspective with their audiences,” said Waxman. “These partnerships reflect the cross-media collaborations that have become the model for success in the world of new media.”

Founded in January 2009 by Waxman, who had previously worked as a correspondent for both The Washington Post and The New York Times, TheWrap reports now seeing over 1 million unique visitors per month. Just this weekend, the news service was granted multiple honors from the Los Angeles Press Club, including the National Entertainment Journalism Award.

The site's new funding will go towards the newsroom, naturally, as well as a site redesign slated for the summer.