SB Nation scores $10.5 million third round

Sports blog and news network continues its rise with Khosla Ventures funding and solid valuation

Sports blog network SB Nation has secured $10.5 million in a Series C round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Accel Partners and Comcast Interactive Capital, we've confirmed with the company. The funding will be used to facilitate the site’s growth, fueling acquisitions and driving sales.

The Washington, D.C.-based company has now raised about $23.5 million in total from the above investors as well as Allen & Company and various angel investors.

SB Nation aims to be a one-stop shop for sports fans looking for information about teams and players from pretty much every sport imaginable. With a real-time updated scoreboard, quality articles written by freelance writers, local-based news sections and more, the site is certainly on its way.

The latest funding round puts SB Nation’s valuation somewhere between $60 and $90 million.

“We plan to use the money to grow out our network,” said CEO Jim Bankoff, “investing in our writers and our proprietary tech platform, which we feel is among the best in the content business as well as our sales team.”

A former AOL executive, Bankoff has successfully headed the company for two years now. The company also has on board a former MySpace sales director, Dave Borstein, who now leads sales for his current employer.

SB Nation, short for SportsBlog Nation, was founded in 2003 (as AthleticsNation.com) by political activist Jerome Armstrong, freelance writer Tyler Bleszinski and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (creator of Daily Kos). Today, the network features almost 300 sites with 410 paid writers.

Over the summer, SB Nation acquired SportingNews’ The Sporting Blog. With some new cash on hand, the company could be poised to snap up some more small networks and startups.